


By The Numbers

by PaigeTurner



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Charity Auctions, F/M, First Dates, Fluff and Angst, Innuendo, Language, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-06-03 04:00:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 20,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6595810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaigeTurner/pseuds/PaigeTurner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve allows himself to be auctioned off for charity, but the winning bidder isn't what he expected</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My first foray in the "Flangst" genre, it's a mashup of fluff and angst. This will likely be a slow-to-update fic

“Yeah, I’m listening, go on,” Tony muttered as he soldered something inside the toaster.

“So it’s a fundraiser for the Sekovia Relief, what are you doing?” Hill asked.

“Fixing this. Can I just write a check?” 

“What kind of fundraiser?” Steve asked.

“No, it’s a dating auction. The two of you and Barton will be auctioned off and you’ll go on one date with the winning bidder.”

“That sounds fun, hand me the screwdriver.”

“Are you actually listening?” Hill complied, handing over the tool.

“Um, the other one.”

“He’ll be there,” Steve promised her. “As will I.”

***

Steve had never suffered stage fright. He was well accustomed to the glare and heat of the spotlight. He reminded himself of both those things as his heart pounded. He couldn’t see the audience for the lights.  
“Lot Forty-One, Captain Steven Rogers,” the auctioneer proclaimed. Steve smiled and waved dutifully. “Better known as Captain America this handsome patriot enjoys picnics, long walks and black and white movies.” Steve swallowed hard. “We’ll open the bidding for your slice of the American dream at thousand dollars.”

At that point, the man began rattling off numbers more quickly than Steve could comprehend them, pointing into the crowd and thanking the faceless masses for their bids. Steve just kept telling himself that the money was for the Sekovia Relief and Rebuilding Fund. By the time he was allowed to leave the stage, the reality that he would have to actually go on a date with a strange woman who had just paid an obscene amount of money for the privilege began to sink in. 

He found an exit door backstage and stumbled out into an alley. His head was swimming, and he was so distracted that he nearly jumped out of his skin when Natasha spoke.

“Are you okay?”

“Um, no. I don’t know. What did I just get myself into? I mean, it sounded like a nice idea, auction off a date for a good cause but… I guess I didn’t think about how it would feel,” Steve rambled. 

“I did,” Natasha admitted.

“Sold off like cattle and now I’m stuck going on a date I didn’t want to go on in the first place.”

“If you don’t want to go, don’t go,” she advised.

“And make the charity pay the money back?” Steve shook his head.

“I wouldn’t make them do that.”

“Well, it’s not really up to you,” he replied.

“Why not? It was my money.”

Steve stared at her; realization slowly dawned across his face. “You placed the winning bid.”

She nodded in affirmation.

“I’ll pay you back,” he offered.

“Or…you could take me out.”

“You want the date?”

“You don’t have to,” she repeated. 

“I gave my word that I would take the winner on a date,” Steve replied. “I keep my promises.”

“Saturday night?”

“It’s a date.”

***

“Rain check on the date?” Steve shouted as he flung his shield into the thorax of a massive robot.

“Why?” Natasha replied. She quickly slipped a fresh magazine into her gun.

“Giant robots,” he pointed out.

Natasha shrugged. “We’re still going to need to eat afterwards. Let me change clothes and freshen up my makeup.”

Steve stopped to stare at her in disbelief and nearly got clocked. He probably would’ve been hit and hit hard if she hadn’t shot the metal creature. 

“Let’s just try to get out of this alive,” he requested.

“I think you’re making excuses,” she declared between dodging and attacking. “Not tonight, Nat, we’re fighting giant robots. No, I can’t, I have a concussion. Can we try next week, I’m saving the-“

“Okay!” 

The team managed to best the bots.

“Where’d these things come from?” Tony wondered.

“Latveria, according to the stamp.” Natasha was studying a chunk of detached metal. “You want to return to sender?”

“Tempting,” he replied. “But I’d rather take some back to the lab.”

“You know, I think Stark and I have things under control here,” Clint declared. “You know, if you two want to take off.”

“Thank you, Agent Barton,” Steve said rather pointedly. “How long do you need to get ready?”

“Twenty minutes,” Natasha said. It didn’t matter much what she was getting ready for, she could be ready for literally anything in twenty minutes.

“I’ll give you ten.” He smiled at her. “Then I’m eating without you, I’m starved.”

“Make it fifteen and don’t expect too much.”

“You look beautiful right now.” He meant it. Her cheeks were flushed, and her hair was plastered to her neck with sweat, and her lips were the most enticing shade of coral pink.

“Fifteen minutes,” Natasha insisted.

***

Steve had to admit, the fifteen minutes had been well worth it. He’d needed to change clothes as well. He’d washed his hands and face and combed his hair; the helmet did terrible things to his hair. Natasha had transformed herself from badass assassin to elegant lady. Her hair fell in perfect waves, her makeup was understated and flawless and her dress could stop traffic. 

“I didn’t make reservations anywhere,” he admitted guiltily. “I thought maybe we’d just find a diner, grab a burger. You look… a little too nice for a greasy spoon.”

“Then I’ll give the place a jolt of class. I’m not changing.”

“Don’t change.” Steve smiled. He hailed a cab and held the door while she got in. 

“Noah’s, on eighty-fifth street,” Natasha instructed the cabbie. 

“Noah’s?” Steve asked.

“It’s a diner, you’ll love it. Their specialty is two of every animal on a bun.”

“Sounds...not literally, right?”

Natasha laughed. “It’s a ground beef patty, topped with a fried chicken breast, topped with bacon.”

“So, only three animals,” Steve teased. “People eat that?”

“It comes with bottomless French fries.”

“Well, I’m sold.” 

“I’ve had dinner with you before,” Natasha reminded him. “You could probably finish two.”

“Two orders of bottomless fries?” Steve marveled. “How would that work?”

Natasha chuckled and shook her head. “Two of the ark, you goober.”

“They call it the ark?”

***

“That is a lot of food,” Steve observed. He frowned at the colossal pile of meat on the bun in front of him. “I’m pretty sure this is more than I used to eat in a week.”

“Funny how much life changes,” Natasha remarked. 

“You know, we’ve known each other for a couple years now but I still don’t know what you like to do when you’re not working,” Steve prompted. 

“I’m never not working,” she replied quickly.

“I get that impression. You must have some down time. Even I take some down time.”

“Yeah? What do you do with yours?” She turned the tables effortlessly. 

“I run a lot. Now that I can exercise without having seven asthma attacks and landing in a hospital bed, I enjoy it. Weight lifting, swimming,” he shrugged.

“So you do work for that physique?”

“I can mostly shut my brain off when I’m working out. It’s kind of nice. If I put in enough effort, I can wear myself out enough to sleep.” 

“Still having trouble sleeping?” She offered a sympathetic smile.

“And I read, or watch movies and old tv shows. Trying to catch up on seven decades of culture, you know. I draw a little.” 

“Really?” Her arm stretched across the table and she filched a french fry from the edge of his plate.

“You have your own, and they’ll bring you more,” Steve pointed out. “Why does me drawing come as such a surprise?”

“Because it’s not in your file,” she admitted. “Is that something you’ve picked up recently?”

“No.” Steve shook his head. “I’ve always been a doodler. Mom wanted me to go to art school, but we couldn’t afford that. Anyway, my grades weren’t great; I missed a lot from being sick. I was pretty lucky to get any education.” 

“You ever show anyone your drawings?”

“Mom. Bucky. Peggy, though I didn’t so much show her as she looked over my shoulder and saw. I’m not great or anything like that. It’s just a hobby.” 

“I like to work out too,” Natasha said. “Running, sparring. Ballet. I like to cook and bake.”

“Yeah?” Steve perked up a bit. “I can barely boil water, maybe you can help.”

“It’s the only thing I’m good at that’s not destructive. You know? Talents include: lying, stealing, killing, setting explosives and baking sugar cookies that positively melt in your mouth.”

“Are you working now?” Steve asked. “I mean, are you 'on'? Is this really the real you or is this whoever you think I want to be at dinner with?”

“I think you know by now that who I really am wouldn’t count ‘honesty’ among her virtues.”

“So that’s a...” he prompted.

“The best I can offer is that the woman you’re having dinner with is who I choose to be. Not who someone else chose for me. This is as real as it gets. Do you want to do something after dinner?”

“Like what?”

“A movie? A museum? We could go dancing or bowling…”

Steve refused to take the bait. “What do you want to do?” 

“When was the last time you visited the Met?”

***

Steve was staring at the brush strokes and the variations in the hues of the paint. He glanced over at Natasha and surreptitiously followed her line of sight. She was absorbed in a nearby Degas. He took advantage of the distraction to study her. Her posture had straightened: her head was held high, her shoulders back. Her feet were turned slightly outward. He looked from Natasha to the painting. At dinner, between sparring and cooking, she’d mentioned ballet. He could see it in that moment. 

“Maybe next time we could go dancing,” he suggested. The change in Natasha was immediate. She turned to look at him, her shoulders rolled forward just slightly, her chin dropped, and she seemed to shrink in on herself. “I mean, I’ve pretty much got two left feet, but maybe with a little instruction, I wouldn’t be completely hopeless.”

“Well, I promise to be patient with you,” she offered. Steve smiled. “But I’m not sure I can afford to keep outbidding the Real Housewives of Manhattan.”

Steve nodded, pressed his lips into a thin smile, and looked downward. “Right,” he said quietly. “You’re just here as a favor to a friend and I’m just here as a charitable obligation.” 

“Steve, I-“ Natasha stopped as his head came up. There was steely resolve in his eyes, and he took a deep breath.

“I want to go out with you. Just us. A real date, without all the pretense. Maybe tonight we’re both here for the wrong reasons, but this is the best first date I’ve had in a long time.”

“Me too,” she confessed. “Especially the part about this being the best first date I’ve had in a long time.” Maybe ever, she didn’t add. “But whatever happens between us, we still have to be able to work together.” Natasha emphasized the word work. “And I don’t know that I can afford to lose you as a friend.”

“That will never happen.”

“Even if I break your heart? Slowly? Into a thousand pieces?”

“Into a million pieces.” Steve smiled nervously. “Although, if you could not, I’d appreciate it.”

“The Metropolitan Museum of Art will be closing in thirty minutes. Please make your way to the nearest exit, and thank you for your patronage.” They both looked up at the announcement. Natasha took him by the hand, leading him towards the furthest exit, meandering through exhibits until finally, in a far flung modern art gallery, a docent shooed them out.

It was raining in earnest when they stepped outside. 

“You stay here where it’s dryish,” Steve suggested. “I’ll try to get a cab.”

“The diner’s only a couple blocks away. Let’s walk back; we can get coffee and pie and wait out the storm,” she countered. 

“We’ll get soaked.”

“I might be wicked, but I won’t melt.” Natasha smirked at him. “Come on.”

They stayed close to the buildings, ducking under awnings and eaves. At the diner, they tucked themselves into a booth and stayed long past the skies having cleared. They got caught up in conversation, and coffee and pie turned into ‘we might as well order breakfast.’ Steve walked Natasha to her door just as the sun was rising. 

“Sorry I kept you out all night,” Steve said, but his smile implied that he wasn’t sorry at all. 

“I could think of worse reasons to lose a few hours of sleep. Thank you for a lovely time.” 

“Good night, Natasha.”

“Good morning, Steve.” She was tired but smiling as she strolled through her apartment. Natasha caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her hair hadn’t survived the dash through the rain. “Maybe that’s why he didn’t kiss me.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A second date

Blood and lipstick, nearly the same shade of red, smeared across the back of Natasha’s hand as she wiped her mouth. An apology danced at the tip of Steve’s tongue, but he bit it back. 

“Better,” Natasha declared. “But you’re still pulling your punches.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he objected. 

“I don’t want you to hurt me either, but that means I should be faster, not that you should be slower.” She swept his legs out from under him and he hit the mat hard. “I should stronger, not you should be weaker.”

“The serum.”

“Don’t insult me.” She took a second to catch her breath and as soon as Steve was on his feet, she swept him again. She moved to kick him while he was down and he caught her leg and rolled, bringing her down. They both rolled and he started to move then suddenly her legs were wrapped around his neck. 

“Ankle lock!” Clint called from the sidelines. “Ankle lock!”

Steve fumbled for Natasha’s foot and she grabbed one of his fingers, wrenching it back. The bright flash of pain stopped him from doing anything else to resist. As he started to see dark spots, he brought his palm down hard.

Natasha yelped and loosened her legs, releasing the chokehold. Steve coughed and rubbed his throat. 

“Nice move.”

“You too,” she remarked. She sprang to her feet and pulled up the bottom of her shorts, showing off a red mark and the hem of her underwear. “That’s a handprint.”

Steve immediately blushed tomato red. “I didn’t realize I was tapping…”

“You tapped dat ass!” Clint exclaimed, laughing loudly. 

“Not helping,” Natasha scolded. “It’s fine. Let’s go have breakfast. Clint, we’ll catch up.” She gave him a meaningful glance and Clint beat a hasty retreat.

Steve got up slowly. “I think I’ll eat alone. Or die of embarrassment. Toss up, really.”

“Well, if you’re still alive Friday, I had an idea about that second date.”

“You- you did?”

“It’s a little out of the ordinary,” Natasha warned.

“Oh?”

“I signed us up to serve meals at a soup kitchen. It’s just two and half hours and afterwards, we can get dinner and, I don’t know, I think it’s your turn to pick an activity.”

“That actually sounds fantastic. What made you think of that?” Steve asked.

“What you said about the ark being more food than you used to get in a week. I thought you’d like giving back to the community. And I’ve been volunteering there off and on for a couple years. Which reminds me, you need to call me Jessie while we’re there.”

“Friday?”

“We should leave here around a quarter to four to get there in time.”

***

“Tony?” Clint said cautiously. “Everything ok?”

“Does that look like a heart to you?” Tony held up a slice of toast. Clint stared at it. He cocked his head to the side. 

“It looks like a piece of toast.”

“You don’t see it?”

“I see it, I just think it’s absurd to say there’s a heart on your toast. It’s like grilled cheese Jesus, the human brain is trained to interpret random shapes as meaningful images,” Clint replied. “Are you going to eat it?”

“Obviously.”

“So I got a message from Darcy,” Clint said, changing the subject. “I guess Thor’s back.”

“Who the fuck is Darcy?”

“Thor’s girlfriend Jane’s assistant.”

Tony looked at him in confusion.

“You’d remember if you’d met her. Brunette, great rack.”

“Does your wife know you talk about other women like that?” Tony chided. 

“What?” Clint retorted. “I showed her pictures, Laura thinks Darcy has a great rack too.”

“I need to spend more time with your wife.”

***

“Jess!” A young man, pale and thin except for a bit of a pot belly, rushed over to them. “Oh my God, is that you? I didn’t think you’d be back. How are you?”

“I’m fine,” Natasha said with a warm smile. 

“And who did you bring with you?” He eyed Steve.

“James,” Steve said quickly.

“This is Roger.” Natasha gestured.

Steve smiled warmly. “Roger, nice to meet you.” He shook the young man’s hand firmly. 

“Very nice,” Roger replied. “You know, Jess, I heard about what happened. You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“What happened?” Steve asked, looking from Roger to Natasha with a frown. 

“Oh,” Roger said crisply. “I - nevermind. You know what, it was nothing. Not a thing.”

“I stopped coming to volunteer because one of the regulars started stalking me,” Natasha explained. “It wasn’t a big deal, but I had to get the cops involved.”

Steve had a strong feeling that was nowhere near the real story. He didn’t have a chance to press for details as they were swiftly put to work. He chatted a little with the other volunteers as well as some of the clientele. The time passed quickly and Steve knew without a doubt that he’d be back again.

“So, now what?” Natasha asked, tossing her serving gloves in the trash. 

“Pizza,” Steve answered. “Then, maybe bowling? Unless you were kidding about that.”

“I am willing to bowl.”

“And also you telling me what really happened with the stalker,” he added under his breath. Natasha laughed and shrugged.

“It’s really not as interesting a story as you’re probably imagining.”

“I still want to hear it.”

“Over pizza, then.”

***

“An undercover agent from a group that isn’t too friendly. It played out very much like everyone thought. He started following me after I’d leave. Started making threatening comments. I had SHIELD pick him up.”

“Was he after you?”

Natasha shrugged. “I’m not egotistical enough to assume that he was, but if the opportunity to kill the Black Widow arose, there aren’t many people who wouldn’t take it.”

“SHEILD protected you from those people,” Steve stated quietly. “You put a lot on the line when you opened up those files to the public and brought it all down.” 

“We all did. You think you don’t have enemies?”

“No, I’m not stupid. You were really willing to die in Sekovia, weren’t you?”

“Weren’t you?” Natasha countered. “Everybody dies, Steve.”

Natasha’s expression changed quickly, a warm smile spreading across her face. Steve registered the waitress a moment later. She set the pizza on the table.

“Anything else?”

“No, thank you. It smells wonderful,” Steve answered.

“No death talk over dinner,” Natasha ordered as soon as the waitress was out of earshot. 

“I didn’t want to put you in danger. I was just trying to do the right thing.”

“You did the right thing,” she assured him. “We did the right thing. That doesn’t mean there won’t be repercussions.” 

Steve sighed, his expression clearly unhappy.

“So, how ‘bout the Yankees?” It was a blatant effort to change the course of the conversation, but it did make him smile, even if that smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“Do you follow baseball?” he asked.

“Enough to hold my own in a casual conversation, as with all sports.”

“A good spy is well-rounded, I guess.”

Natasha snickered.

“What? I mean, that is why you follow sports, right?” Steve said. “To blend in, to make conversation. As a front, right?"

“It is, it’s just, the way you phrased it. Lana used to say that when she was padding her bra.”

Steve nearly spit his coke. “That wasn’t! I mean, I hadn't noticed. Obviously I’ve noticed, but I don’t look at you like that. Well, I look at you, and, um, but I try not to, you know, objectify you.”

“You are beet red right now,” Natasha informed him. “I wasn’t implying anything about the way you look at me. Just that phrase reminded me of another definition of well rounded.” She made an hourglass gesture with both hands. “I look at you like that, for the record." 

Natasha discovered it was possible for Steve to blush even more deeply. 

“I’m guessing women didn’t really talk like that back in your day,” she admitted, slightly ashamed of how forthright she'd been.

“Not to me,” Steve replied as he began to recover.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything goes wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Realized an hour or so after the fact that I'd posted the wrong draft of this chapter. It's just a small edit to Clint and Natasha's conversation, but it's fixed now.

Natasha was a good bowler. Steve was beginning to suspect that she was good at everything. As long as he remembered that the ball had to roll along the ground and not fly through the air like a…Frisbee, he did pretty well too. And it was fun. 

“We should do this again,” Natasha suggested. 

“I can’t help but feel like both of our dates have been catered to my interests and comfort levels,” Steve observed. “I’d like to go bowling again, I also want to make sure we’re doing things that you enjoy. What do you like to do on dates?”

Natasha paused and turned her back on the three-seven split at the end of the lane. “I don’t date.”

“At all?” Steve’s eyebrows went up. “Even I date.”

“I keep busy.” She shrugged. She turned back toward the pins, squared off, and sent the ball down the alley. 

“Nice spare.” Steve smiled and marked down her score. “I really like you, Natasha.”

“I like you too.”

“I’d like to go out again.”

“I sense a ‘but’ at the end of that sentence,” Natasha observed.

“I didn’t expect to end up here. I didn’t think we’d ever…go out.”

Natasha waited, patiently, head cocked slightly to the side, eyes narrow, for the other shoe to drop. 

“I’ve been going out, just a few dates, just very casually, with another gal.”

“It’s your frame.” Natasha pointed to the lane. 

“I’ve never done this. I’ve never played the field, but I really want to see you again. I also really want to see her again,” Steve explained in an apologetic tone. “I guess I figured the best course was to be honest and let you decide how you feel about this.”

“They’re not going to knock themselves down.”

Steve sighed and threw two gutter balls. “Now can we talk?”

“Who is she?”

“That wasn’t what I meant, but, okay. Her name is Maggie Beller, she’s a recruiter for OsCorp. We met at church and we’ve been out four times.”

“You said the auction prize was the best first date you’ve been on in a while,” Natasha said pointedly. 

“She had an allergic reaction on our first date; I had to take her to the ER. It was a disaster.”

“Have you told her about our dates?”

“Not yet,” he admitted.

“Don’t bother. There won’t be another.”

“Nat-“

“I hope she makes you happy.” Natasha headed to the counter to turn in the rented shoes. 

“At least let me take you home,” Steve insisted.

“Steve, I’m not angry. We’re still friends.”

“Then let me see you safely home as a friend.”

“I can take care of myself.” She put her own shoes back on. 

***

“Tony, you have to fix this damn toaster,” Pepper complained. “It burned my bagel again.”

“It works fine for me, Pep. What setting did you use?”

“Two.”

Tony frowned. “I’ll tinker with it later.”

“We could get a new one.”

“It’s not broken,” Tony insisted.

“Then why does it need to be tinkered with?” Pepper fired back. 

“Tony, a toaster is, like, twenty bucks. I can buy one if it will result in less quarrelling in the kitchen while I’m trying to make coffee,” Natasha offered. 

“No.” Tony glowered at her. “This one makes perfect toaster strudel. Cheap toasters burn the outside and leave the filling cold.”

“Do you even use the toaster?” Clint asked, looking at Natasha with a puzzled expression. 

“No. I like peace and quiet and coffee. A new toaster would provide me with the first two.”

“You’re in a very sour mood,” Clint observed. 

“My timing is off,” she answered.

“Just like the toaster,” Pepper said, staring pointedly at Tony. “How much do I have to spend to get a toaster that does your perfect toaster strudel and also doesn’t burn my damn bagels every morning?”

“I’ll fix the one we have,” Tony replied.

“You’re just being stubborn.”

***

“What’s this about your timing?” Clint asked once he found Natasha alone. She was drinking her coffee on his balcony. 

“I went on a second date with Rogers.”

Clint sat next to her and said nothing. 

“We had a good time on our auction date, so we figured we’d try it again. And we had a good time again. Right up until he told me that he’s seeing someone else.”

“Ouch.”

She shrugged. “It’s fine. I hope he’s happy.”

“I don’t,” Clint declared. “I hope he feels like he’s made a terrible mistake and spends the rest of his life wondering if he let the best thing that ever happened to him slip through his fingers.”

Natasha smiled into her coffee cup. “Everyone needs a best friend like you.”

“He did, for the record.”

“Did what?” 

“Let the best thing that ever happened to him slip through his fingers.”

“She’s got a nice, normal job. She goes to church. She’s the woman he deserves.”

“That’s not how it works,” Clint declared. “First of all, you do deserve a good man, a man like Steve, if that’s what you want. Second, do you think I deserve Laura?”

“Yes.”

“No. She’s lightyears out of my league. Nice. Normal. Smart. Kind. So, do you think I looked at all that and beautiful too and decided she deserved better?”

“Obviously not,” Natasha answered.

“I did. I said to myself…she deserves better. How do I become better? How do I make myself the man she deserves, because I’m already the man she wants for some crazy reason. What do I do to be worthy?” 

“I’m not the woman he wants or the one he deserves. She is.”

“Yeah, you’ve only saved the world five or six times, I don’t see how you can possibly compete with has normal job and goes to church.”

“He did give me her full name and the name of her employer, so I’m going to check her out. Is that crazy? Like stalker, psycho ex-girlfriend status?”

“Let me know if you want any help with it.”

***

“We are to be wed!” Thor proclaimed, his voice overly loud with excitement. Jane grinned giddily and held up her left hand.

“I helped pick the ring,” Darcy told Pepper conspiratorially. “And I have no idea how the exchange rate works from Asgardian currency to ours.”

Pepper stepped forward with a quiet “Hm” to examine the piece of jewelry. “Very nice, what is it, about a carat and a half?” She took Jane’s hand and tilted it this way and that in the light. “Platinum setting, how many pave diamonds in the halo?”

“Um..” Jane blinked.

“Sixty,” Darcy answered. “And it’s a one point four carat white sapphire in the middle.”

“Well done,” Pepper said approvingly. 

“Thanks.” Jane sounded uncertain but Thor beamed with pride. 

“Have you set a date?” Clint asked. 

“Well, we’re going to have to have two ceremonies,” Jane explained. “One here and one on Asgard.”

“Of course, you will be invited to both,” Thor assured them. 

“I think we’re going to do the Asgardian one first, because I don’t how it’ll work with Thor not having a birth certificate…” Jane fretted.

“Give me a week, I’ll get him a birth certificate,” Natasha offered. 

‘You can do that?” Thor asked.

“You should also have a driver’s license and a passport. Consider it my wedding gift.”

“This is most generous!”

“So…who’s planning the bachelor party?” Tony asked. “Please pick me. Because I’m going to plan it regardless of who you pick.” 

“What is a bachelor party?”

“This is going to be fun,” Clint remarked.

***


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adult content warning: drinking, drug use, sexual context, nudity. Also the fact that I *never* write fluff is definitely rearing its ugly head.

There was barely room on Tony’s private jet for Steve, Sam, Rhodey, Clint, Fandral, Hogun, Volstagg and Thor. The nine of them turned a limousine into a clown car. Tony drove them to a palatial night club. 

“Veer kone-ing-“ Sam began sounding out the sign. 

“It means Four Queens,” Tony translated helpfully. He passed the keys to a valet. “Come on in.” 

“I don’t know any Dutch,” Rhodey objected. 

“You guys just tell me what you want and I’ll make it happen. Especially you, Thor.”

“I’m not sure about this,” Steve fretted as he watched the limo pull away.

“They have every vice you can imagine and probably a few that’ll make your poor, sheltered mind explode,” Tony declared. “Girls, boys, drinks, drugs, gambling…”

“Like if you opened a theme park,” Steve teased. 

Inside, the music was loud, colored lights strobed across the club and a wide array of humanity was dancing and grinding. 

“I reserved a private room, name’s Stark,” he told the host. The man nodded and began to lead them into the crowd. Tony broke off from the group, smiling and shaking hands with various individuals as he wove towards the elevator. The Asgardians were checking out their surroundings with curiosity, Sam and Steve with caution. Clint mentally marked the location of the exit and scanned the crowd for potential threats. He suddenly tensed as they all piled into the elevator.

“This is a bad idea, guys. We should go.”

“We’ve just arrived,” Thor objected.

“Barton, if you want to wait at the limo or, hell, take a cab to the airport, that’s fine, but I’ve come too far to leave now,” Tony replied. 

“Look,” Clint said desperately as the doors closed, “I can’t explain right now, but we can’t stay here.”

“Have a drink. Play some cards. Smoke a joint,” Tony suggested. 

“Something bad is going to happen if we stay.”

“They’ve got pool and darts, maybe you could hustle some tourists.”

“We are tourists,” Steve pointed out. 

“Come, friend, rejoice with us,” Thor encouraged Clint.

“I would’ve put money on Rogers being the one to puss out,” Tony muttered. 

“Fine. I’ll stay, but only to mitigate the impending disaster.” 

“That’s the spirit!” Fandral said gleefully. “Let there be no more quarrelling.” 

Each of the party rooms featured massive windows as well as a glass panel set into the floor to give the occupants a view of the whole club. Stark had reserved a casino themed room, with green carpet surrounding the dance floor and red velvet curtains pulled back by the windows. 

“Get a dozen or so girls in here, a round of appetizers to start,” Tony instructed. He gave the bar on the far wall a once over. “And get that clown out of here, I’ll mix our drinks.”

Clint was peering through the glass to the lower level.

“Clint?” Steve asked quietly. “Are we in danger?”

“Us? No, probably not.” Clint sighed and shook his head.

“Hey, we’re here to have fun, right?” Steve smiled nervously. 

“It’s fine. I’m sure everything will be fine. Let’s pull some of these curtains,” Clint suggested. Tony handed him a beer as he passed the bar. The room began to fill with beautiful, scantily clad women. Food was brought in. Hogun and Volstagg began a game of strip poker with two of the women. The women started out wearing less, but neither of the men understood how to play, so the score began to even quickly. Sam and Rhodey settled in at the pool table. Fandral was dancing with a man and woman, both clad in leopard print loin cloths and nothing else. Tony seemed happy tending bar and instructing Thor as he did body shots off a heavily tattooed redhead. 

Even slowly nursing his beer, Clint soon began to feel fuzzy-headed, his senses dulled. Steve was drinking beer as though it was water with no effect at all. There was one effect. After a couple hours, he excused himself to the bathroom. The music was louder in the hall than in the private room. He passed a man wearing a suit that, if Tony’s wardrobe had taught Steve anything, probably cost more than a car. He was getting a blow job from a man whose bright purple briefs matched his hair. Steve quickly averted his eyes and shuffled into the men’s room. He wet a paper towel at the sink and patted his face and neck, feeling flushed. He tossed the paper towel into the trash. Steve used a urinal and washed his hands, studiously ignoring a man who appeared to be hallucinating in a stall with the door open.  
There were a total of six party rooms on the second floor of Four Queens. As he exited the restroom, Steve found himself staring straight into the window of a nautical themed room. The walls were blue with white waves cresting. In the center of the room a brass pole reached from floor to ceiling with a massive sculpture of an anchor at its base. Natasha was straddling the anchor. She wore a navy underbust corset with two columns of brass buttons running down the front, from just below her breasts to the top of the garter straps holding up her stockings. Her white bra was so sheer he could see her nipples even from a distance. A navy thong and matching high heels completed the look. 

Steve stared as one of the men in the room ran his hands over her body, helping her remove the bra. He jumped at a hand on his arm and looked down into Clint’s face. 

“You knew she was here, that’s why you wanted us to leave.”

“I thought you’d drowned in the sink, let’s get back to our party,” Clint suggested with a trace of urgency in his voice. Steve’s eyes began to drift back toward the window. “Don’t,” Clint hissed. “She’s working. You fuck up, you’ll get her killed.”

Steve forced his gaze down to the floor and let Clint lead him back to the Casino room. He pulled them into a corner once inside. “I spotted her downstairs, right as we were getting on the elevator. Not sure what she’s doing here, but she’s obviously undercover.”

“She’s not under much,” Steve replied.

“Just help me talk Tony into leaving.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is a complete moron

“You’re not going to get Tony out of here unless you club him over the head and drag him out.”

“You’re jealous.”

“I’m concerned,” Steve insisted. “She could be in a very dangerous situation.”

“Natasha loves very dangerous situations,” Clint argued. “She has it under control. Even when she doesn’t, she does.” 

“Did you see her?”

“I think it’s a good thing you picked little Miss Nine to Five. You obviously can’t handle the reality of Nat’s job.” 

“She could get killed, you said that.”

“I said you could get her killed. You’re jealous. You’re not her boyfriend, you don’t get a say in who she shows her tits to. Get over it; help me get Stark out of here before he somehow makes the situation worse.” Clint headed to the bar to talk to Tony again. 

Steve lingered near one of the windows, peeping out from behind the velvet curtain. He felt dizzy and sick to his stomach. He didn’t know how long he’d be standing there, but he couldn’t wait any longer. 

“Where are you going?” Sam asked.

“Bathroom again, I guess I’m drinking too much.” 

Tony grabbed Clint’s arm. “When girls go to the potty together, it’s funny. When you follow Rogers to the bathroom, it’s creepy and starts rumors about don’t ask, don’t tell.” 

***

Two large men in dark colored suits flanked the doorway to the nautical room. Steve passed them with little more than a glance, making his way around the corner to the window where he’d seen her earlier. She was seated on a man’s lap; the letters “RE” had been scrawled across her left cheek in black. He was at an awkward angle, he couldn’t see enough of what was going on through the crowd and the glare off the glass, but there was another man standing in front of her. He grabbed her arms and pulled her up on her feet. The man whose lap she’d been on pulled down the thong.

Steve backed up until his heel hit the wall on the far side of the hallway. Wrapping his arms over his head, he launched himself forward and dove through the glass. He rolled as he landed and looked up. “WH” was written on Natasha’s right cheek. Her mouth dropped open, her crimson lips forming a perfect O. A band of men rushed forward to restrain Steve. They held him down, frisking him roughly.

Steve deliberately slurred his speech. “Oh. Sorry,” he said a bit too loudly. “I think I tripped on something coming out of the head.”

He blinked up at the men innocently. “Shit, I’m in the wrong room,” he declared.

“Yes, my friend. You are very much in the wrong room.” The man pulled Natasha’s thong the rest of the way down and pushed her aside, nearly tripping her as he removed the scrap of cloth from around her ankles. “What is your name?”

Steve blanked. He couldn’t remember what alias was on the id he was carrying. He opened and closed his mouth like a gasping fish. One of the others found the document and read off the name.

“Evan Christensen, American.” The man flipped through the wallet. “He has triple A card and a couple hundred dollars American money.”

“Is this your first time in Amsterdam, Evan from America?”

“Yes.”

“I am Arnoud. You have no doubt been sampling the liquor.”

Steve nodded. “A little too much, I guess.” He smiled sheepishly.

“What do you think of the women here?” Arnoud asked.

Steve glanced at Natasha. He couldn’t help it. “They’re very beautiful.”

The men helped Steve to his feet and led him to the chair next to Arnoud. They pushed him down into the seat and he felt it best not to resist.

“Beautiful, yes. Come here, Rosalind.”

Natasha stepped forward. There was a wet gleam across her chest.

“A woman should be more than beautiful,” Arnoud explained. “She is auditioning to come work for me. I will make her famous actress. But she must be talented. She must be dedicated, willing to do whatever it takes.”

Two men grabbed Steve’s arms, pulling him against the back of the chair and holding him securely. Arnoud whispered something to Natasha and she nodded. She knelt in front of Steve and reached for the fly of his pants.

“Hey, hey, wait. Wait a minute,” Steve said. “I got a girlfriend back home, I can’t…”

“What your girlfriend doesn’t know won’t hurt anyone,” Arnoud assured him.

“I’ll know,” Steve objected. “And, and I’m Catholic.” Natasha had unzipped him even as he argued but she hesitated and looked to Arnoud. The man laughed. He stopped laughing abruptly and Steve found himself staring down the barrel of a revolver. He sat still as a stone while Natasha opened the front of his slacks. He shuddered a little, involuntarily, as her hand ventured inside his briefs.

“Relax,” Natasha cooed with a Northern English accent. “I won’t bite unless you want me to.”

He squirmed as she worked to expose him. The host walked in. He was followed by two men. The first carried a broom; the second was Clint Barton. Relief washed over Steve.

“I am told a window was broken,” the host said. “There is a disturbance?”

“It is being taken care of,” Arnoud replied.

“No, no, this is my club; I will take care of everything. Everything. Please, while we clean up this mess, let me move your party to another room. We have larger, more private rooms in the basement. Very nice. For the very important people,” the host insisted. “This man, he broke the window?” he pointed to Steve.

“Yes.”

“He is causing you distress, I can see that.” The host snapped his fingers. “Koert, escort him out.”

Clint stepped forward; he grabbed Steve’s biceps and yanked him out of the chair, away from Arnoud and Natasha.

“I think we have had enough of your club for tonight,” Arnoud proclaimed.

“No, no, there is very nice space downstairs. I give you partial refund for tonight, you will be very happy.”

“Close out my check. I am leaving.”Arnoud took the cash from Steve’s wallet and handed it to the host. “For your window.” He chucked the wallet at Steve. Clint loosened his grasp to allow Steve to pick it up and then began tugging him toward the door.

“You’re leaving?” Natasha put just a hint of a pout into her voice.

“Come along,” Arnoud invited. “We can continue our party where we will not be interrupted.”

Clint led Steve out the back door of the club. “Look, Tony’s too drunk to fly back tonight. He’s getting us all rooms at a hotel. I’ll text you the name when I get back upstairs.”

“What’ll happen to Nat?”

“She’ll finish her mission. I told you you’d make it worse.” 

***

Steve walked to the hotel. It somehow seemed like a fitting penance for his actions at the club. He laid on his bed and pulled out his cell phone.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Mags.” He smiled.  
“I wasn’t expecting to hear from you,” she said cheerfully. “Aren’t you supposed to be at your friend’s bachelor party? Woo-hoo?”

“Yeah, it’s not really my cup of tea,” Steve admitted. “And I missed you.”

“Aw, aren’t you sweet,” Maggie replied.

“We’re not going to be home on schedule. Our pilot is too drunk to fly and, knowing Tony, he’ll still be drunk tomorrow…”

“Well don’t get on the plane ‘til he’s good and sober,” she advised.

“Wouldn’t be the first plane crash I’d survived.”

“Don’t push your luck, Steve.”

“Are you busy?”

“Um, kind of. I have to get ready for a meeting with the boss Monday morning. I mean, I have all weekend to do it…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I like hearing from you.”

“What time is it there?”

“Like eight o’clock Friday night,” Maggie answered.

“It’s technically early Saturday morning here. Like, two.”

“You should sleep.”

“I will,” Steve promised. “I just wanted to hear your voice. I love you.”

There was a brief silence on the line. “I love you too. Good night, Steve.”

“Good night, Maggie.” He hung up and laid the phone on his chest. They’d been dating five months. Halfway around the world and thinking about another woman, he’d told her that he loved her. The words had just slipped out and Steve found himself wondering if they were true.


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apologies, paranoia, dessert and absence making the heart grow fonder

Clint ended up flying them back on Sunday, mostly because Tony refused to stop drinking long enough to sober up and it was getting ridiculous. Even though he knew it was unlikely, Steve checked Natasha’s quarters when they got back to the compound.

“I don’t know how long her mission was anticipated to take,” Clint said. “But after there’s all these reports that are supposed to be filled out and filed. I put them off as long as possible, even if all I have to do is sign it. I’ll wait until they escalate it to Hill and then I’ll make her ask me at least twice. I hate paperwork. Waste of time. But Nat? I don’t know if it’s a holdover from her Red Room training or if she’s still trying to impress Fury after all these years, but she always does hers right away. Every ‘I’ dotted, every ‘t’ crossed, everything signed and submitted in triplicate within twenty-four hours.”

“It’s been almost three days; you’re telling me she’s still filing reports?”

“Well, your involvement probably means there’s a lot more paperwork,” Clint pointed out. 

Steve changed his clothes and went for a run. He came back winded. When Natasha didn’t return by Tuesday, he packed a small bag and went to Maggie’s. Clint texted him on Thursday.

“She’s back, jackass,” the text read. 

***

Natasha squared off, arms crossed over her chest, feet planted, jaw set. “Explain yourself, Rogers.”

He’d spent the past five days thinking about what he was going to say to her and he was suddenly certain that it was going to be the wrong thing. “I know I owe you an apology,” he began. “But I’m not sorry I jumped through that window. I know it was stupid and rash, but at the time….in the moment…” he sighed. Her glower intensified. “I know you can handle yourself. Clint said that even when you don’t have things under control, you do, and I know that. I do. It looked like you were in trouble. It looked like they were going to hurt you. It looked like they were going to violate you," he said awkwardly. "I couldn’t let that happen.”

Natasha’s shoulders drooped. The lines eased off her face. “They were.”

“But you had a plan,” Steve guessed. “To stop them.”

“The only way into his house and past his security was for him to bring you past as a guest. I had a plan to get into that house no matter the consequences. Once we were inside, I was able to incapacitate him without having to let him do anything.”

Steve’s expression brightened. “Then he didn’t…”

“No, he didn’t. What you did actually helped, but that does not mean that I want you to do it again. Arnoud is a trafficker and a pornographer. I recovered files from his computer that will lead SHIELD to others in the same business. I found an address where human slaves were being held and we rescued nine girls. It’s not a lot. It’s not enough. But it’s more than the one girl you saved at the club. There’s a bigger picture, Steve.”

“You look like you need a hug,” Steve observed. “But I’m not sure where you’re at in terms of willingness to accept physical affection from me, since I’m a jackass…”

Natasha just nodded and stepped forward. She slipped her arms under his and wrapped them around his waist. Steve’s arms settled around her shoulders. He held her until he felt her begin to pull back and he quickly let her go. 

“Have you lost weight?” Natasha asked with a frown. 

“I don’t think so,” Steve answered.

“Clint said you haven’t been staying here, are you taking care of yourself?”

“I stayed a couple days somewhere else,” Steve hesitated and changed tracks mid-sentence. “Not seeing you in the places I normally see you was getting to me,” he admitted. “But I’ve been…well, I haven’t been all that hungry. I really do feel bad about what happened at the club.” 

Natasha was scrutinizing him. “You’re thinner. Where have you been?”

“Maggie’s.” He couldn’t meet her gaze as he said it.

“Oh. How is she?” Natasha kept her tone light.

“She’s fine.”

“You should bring her around. I’m sure everyone’d like to meet her. I know I would.” 

***

“Why did I ask Rogers to bring that bitch here?” Natasha muttered. 

“Because you’re trying to be the bigger person?” Clint guessed. “No, wait, it’s because you trust her as far as you can throw a piano underwater and you want to look her in the eyes as you stab in her the back. A complicated maneuver, I might add, and not for the faint of heart.” 

“She lied on her resume.” 

“Everybody lies on their resume,” Clint replied.

“I didn’t.”

“Your resume was a whole pile of corpses.”

***

Steve was standing close - uncomfortably close in Natasha estimation - to a pretty, young blonde who was chatting up Pepper and Rhodey. Her animated face possessed sculpted cheekbones, a pert nose and deep-set hazel eyes. She looked over at Clint and Natasha as they approached and smiled broadly.

Maggie’s smile made Natasha’s blood run cold. 

They made pleasantries throughout dinner, but when Maggie excused herself to use the restroom, Natasha elbowed Clint under the table.

“Can you help me with something in the kitchen?”

“Um, sure.” He followed her out of the dining room and watched with a half smile as she closed the kitchen door. 

“Her accent is fake,” Natasha signed.

“Really?” Clint said out loud. “We’re? Okay.” He shook his head and switched to sign. “She’s lived in a lot of different places, it’s not fake it’s just not a straight Bronx accent." 

“She’s lying.”

“I think you’re being a little paranoid,” Clint signed.

“Paranoid doesn’t mean wrong.” Natasha glared at him. “I want you to ask Steve if she has a scar, low on her abdomen, halfway between the navel and Pandora’s box, horizontal.”

“Do you want me to use the phrase Pandora’s box?”

“Don’t ask while she’s around,” Natasha signed, ignoring his question. “Get him alone.” She handed him a pie. 

Maggie was back at the table when Clint and Natasha returned with the desserts. “Apple or cherry?” Natasha asked with a saccharine smile. 

“Oh, none for me,” Maggie replied. “I’m stuffed. And I’m not as active as all of you; I have to watch my calories.”

“More for the rest of us,” Clint said with a shrug.

“Steve, you want one of each?” Natasha offered.

Steve chuckled. “Just apple, a small piece, please.”

After dessert, they gathered for a movie. Maggie sat practically in Steve’s lap and Natasha excused herself to bed halfway through. After the movie, Steve snuggled up to Maggie. “Do you want me to take you home or do you want to stay?” he asked.

She smiled at him. “I could stay. I have to fly out on Monday; I want to spend as much time with you as possible before then.”

***

“Are you okay, Steve?” Pepper asked, cocking her head to the side as the super soldier lingered in front of the open fridge. 

“Huh? Yeah. Maggie’s in Tucson by now. She’ll be back in a week but I just feel a little out of sorts, I guess.”

“You miss her,” Pepper observed with a smile. “That’s sweet. It’s a sign things are going well.”

Thor was eating two poptarts stacked on top of each other while loading four more into the toaster. “Absence can be difficult, but it’s true it can make the heart grow fonder. I’ve spent too many, too long, nights away from Jane,” he remarked. He pushed down both levers and suddenly shouted, bits of half-chewed breakfast pastry spraying out onto his beard. With an enraged expression, he held out his hand and Mjolnir flew to him.

“Thor, wait!” Pepper shouted.

“No!” Steve yelled at the same time. 

There was a rumble of thunder and the kitchen smelled of ozone.


	7. Chapter 7

“Let me get this straight…” Tony was using his calmest, most patient voice – one Pepper recognized as reserved for very important total and complete idiots. “You hit the toaster with lightning.”

“It attacked me,” Thor replied. “I merely responded in kind.”

“It…it shocked you,” Tony said. “It probably had a short. Just a little malfunction.”

Thor looked down at his hand. “It hurt. Up my whole arm.”

“You struck it with lightning,” Tony reiterated. “In my kitchen. While it was plugged in.”

“When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail,” Pepper mused. “I’m not sad about the toaster being destroyed.”

“You’re not helping,” Tony replied. “Now, I have a lot of work to do, checking all the fuses downstairs, and Pepper, you should probably see if you can get the scorch marks off our Corinthian marble countertops.”

“I may have overreacted,” Thor admitted. 

***  
“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Tony that kind of angry. He wasn’t yelling, he wasn’t threatening, he wasn’t out of control, but man was he pissed,” Steve recalled. 

“Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone but the toaster. How was your flight?”

“Long, overcrowded, but uneventful. We sat on the runway for two hours for no apparent reason,” Maggie answered. “Any chance of one of your genius friends inventing a teleporter?” 

“Please don’t even suggest that,” Steve shook his head and chuckled. “Imagine the disaster when it angered Thor and he struck it with lightning.”

Maggie laughed. “Okay, okay, maybe not the best idea. I’ve got a meeting in ten, talk to you later?”

“Absolutely,” Steve replied. “Go get ‘em.”

“Love you.”

“Love you, bye.”

***

As soon as the call ended, Maggie was dialing another number. “We have to move up our timeline. There was an incident this morning at the compound. We hit it now, the system failures will be blamed on a rash Asgardian. It’ll keep suspicions low, it’s the perfect opportunity.”

“How are things progressing with Rogers?”

“He’s getting weaker. Not weak enough yet, but I think we can put the first phase into action.”

“Is Romanov at the compound?”

“Yes.”

“Then we will make our move tonight.”

***  
Thor insisted on replacing the toaster, the countertops and anything else that needed replacing, so he and Pepper had spent most of the day shopping. Tony had a bad habit of making things worse before he made them better. He spent the day working on fuses and breakers and wiring. By nightfall, nothing in the kitchen was operational; pizzas were ordered. Thor declined to eat with the team, opting to spend the rest of his evening with Jane instead. 

Dinner was a quiet affair. Tony was clearly still in a bad mood. Steve looked around the table and frowned. “Where’s Clint?”

“Work,” Natasha answered. “He left this morning.”

“He didn’t say anything about going anywhere,” Pepper said.

“Sometimes these things come up suddenly.” 

“That’s fine,” Tony snapped. “Last thing I need is more people under foot while I try to get this place back online.”

“Can I be of any assistance?” Vision offered.

Tony rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Don’t stay up all night playing drunken electrician,” Pepper begged. 

“No,” Tony said. “I got security online, I don’t give a fuck about the rest right now. I’m actually going to call it an early night.”

“That’s probably a good idea for everyone,” Steve remarked. 

***

Natasha awoke in a cold sweat, panting. As she looked at the clock, she suddenly realized that the smell of smoke hadn’t only been a part of her nightmare. The compound was eerily quiet. She laid her palm against her door. The wood was cool. Breathing slowly and deeply, she opened it. Immediately she began to cough. The hallway was filled with smoke. Natasha dropped to the ground. 

Under the choking black smoke, she crawled to the nearest door and pounded on it as hard as she could. She waited there for what felt like an eternity before she realized that the nearest room’s was Clint’s. Vacant. She kept crawling. 

After Ultron, they’d all decided that the Avengers training compound might be better off without a systemic AI. There was a fire alarm and suppression system in place and Natasha wasn’t sure why it was dormant. Her eyes were burning and then, suddenly, a boot connected with her ribcage. Hands reached out of the smoke to grab her as she tried to roll away. 

She couldn’t see. She couldn’t breathe. She fought by touch until she felt the pinch of a needle sliding into the side of her neck. She fought no more. As everything faded black, she could smell smoke and hear her mother calling her name. 

***

Sam woke to the smell of smoke. He rolled out of bed and hit the floor, army crawling to the door. He touched it gingerly. Opening it carefully, he stayed low. There was a glow coming from the direction of the kitchen. He could hear someone coughing. “Guys! Guys, there’s fire,” he yelled. “Everybody wake up!”

***

When Natasha opened her eyes, Maggie was standing over her. The blonde was wearing Natasha’s pajamas. Not a copy of them, either, Natasha was in her underwear and what felt like half a roll of duct tape. Maggie held two wigs near Natasha’s head, eyeing them critically against the color of Natasha’s hair. 

“I fucking knew it,” Natasha growled. “Who are you really?”

“I am the worthy heir to the name Black Widow,” Maggie replied. She tossed one wig aside and set to work tucking her blonde hair under the other red wig. 

“You’re here to kill me?”

“Far too simple, Natalia.” She looked over at Natasha and smirked. “I’m going to frame you. The Avengers are going to kill you.”

Natasha flexed her arms. She was taped from elbows to fingertips and from knees to toes. Getting out was going to hurt. “Frame me? For?”

“The assassination of Captain America.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “That’s stupid, why would I kill Steve?”

Maggie was carefully applying a holographic mask. “Heaven hath no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,” she answered. “Guess he shouldn’t have chosen me over you.”

“First of all, I broke up with him. Second, if I was going to kill someone in a jealous rage, it’d be you. Or Maggie Beller, because that’s obviously not who you really are.”

“I am Yelena Belova.” This time, when she turned to look at Natasha, Nat found herself looking at her own face. “I am Black Widow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cue everyone who called it.


	8. Chapter 8

“Is everyone out?” Pepper asked. “Where’s Steve? Did he get out?” The firefighters ignored her, rushing past to deal with the blaze.

“I think I’m kind of numb to the phenomenon of having my home destroyed,” Tony announced. He sounded numb. Pepper touched his arm lightly. 

“Sam? You okay?” Natasha wandered over to where Sam was sitting in the back of ambulance. He had a blanket around his shoulders and was holding an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. He lowered the mask.

“Yeah. You?”

“I think so.” She looked around. Vision had joined Pepper and Tony.

“They’re taking Steve to the hospital, I guess he’s not breathing so well,” Sam said, concern evident in his voice. 

“I’m going with him.”

“They won’t let you in the ambulance, I already tried,” Sam advised. “My guess is that we’ll all go in a little bit.”

She frowned. 

“I’m sure he’ll be okay. He’s always okay, no matter how grim things look.” Sam tried to stay upbeat. 

“It’ll take more than a little smoke to take him out,” Natasha agreed. 

***

Daybreak found them half asleep in the waiting room at the hospital. Thor, Jane and Darcy brought coffee and pastries. “How is everyone?”

“They’ve had Steve on supplemental oxygen, they’re doing another breathing treatment, then they think they’re going to release him,” Pepper answered. She accepted a cup of coffee with a tired smile. 

“If his O2 sats are good,” Sam added. 

“But he’ll be fine, right?” Jane asked. “I mean, doesn’t he have some sort of super thing going on?”

“He’s not recovering as fast as we expected,” Tony admitted. “But he should be able to come home later today.”

“Speaking of home…do you guys have someplace to go?” Darcy asked. 

“I’m going back to the compound, see how bad the damage is,” Tony shrugged. “There’s still a mansion upstate and I bought a new place in Ventura…we have options.”

“Must be rough,” Darcy observed. 

“Trust me; it’s better than everyone crashing on your couch.” Sam gave Natasha a friendly smile as he said it. She didn’t smile back. 

***

They pressed a piece of tape across Natasha’s mouth and pulled a pillowcase over her head. She laid in the back of the van, rebreathing the same air as she drifted in and out of consciousness. She fought against the sedatives, but kept losing. 

The pillow case was pulled tight around her throat. She was on concrete instead of the carpeted floor of the van. The cotton fabric pressed against her face. Natasha began to squirm.

“She’s awake,” a very nearby male voice announced. 

“For fuck’s sake, knock it off.”

The tension went out of the fabric. She took calm, deep breaths. “Make me. Where’s the tape?”

“Why?” the more distant voice demanded. 

“I’m bored.” He yanked the pillowcase taut, catching a handful of her hair as he twisted it around his fist. 

“We don’t have to torture her.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t.”

Natasha heard footsteps coming from the same location as the distant voice, the soft thud of something small hitting the floor nearby, and the footsteps passed, then the creak and slam of a door. The man who’d been tugging on the pillowcase got up and moved away. She realized that the fabric of the pillowcase was thin enough that she could make out his form against the brightly lit room. She listened to him pulling off a length of tape as he approached.

He gathered the fabric around her neck, twisting, rolling and tucking the excess until it was tight. He wrapped the tape in place over the edge of the pillowcase, securing it. She focused on breathing slowly. It wasn’t so much the air being restricted as the blood flow. Already her head was beginning to ache. 

He ripped off another piece of tape. Two pieces. Short ones, by the sound. Her arms were yanked upwards towards her face and she felt him secure a piece of duct tape over each of her nipples. That was going to suck to remove. Natasha grunted in complaint. He chuckled. She heard a soft, familiar click and she would’ve smiled if it hadn’t been for the tape over her mouth. A blade – cold, hard and sharp – pressed against her ribs.

“You try anything – any fucking thing – and I will carve the pretty right off you,” he growled. 

Natasha whimpered in response and nodded. He cut through the tape around her legs and feet. She wiggled her toes, feeling returning, and flexed her ankles. She was so delighted by this turn of events that she couldn’t bring herself to be more than mildly annoyed when he pushed her legs apart and settled himself between them. 

“Hold still,” he advised. Natasha almost snickered but she managed to turn the sound into a frightened-sounding squeak. The blade ghosted across her hip. Natasha brought her arms down, hooking them around his forearm while bucking her hips to throw him off balance. She heard the knife clatter across the floor. She swung one leg up, trapping his neck in the crook of her knee. Releasing his arm, she wedged her arms under his jaw. Every aching muscle in her body flexed as she wrenched his neck. She was rewarded with a crack that she felt as much as heard. The man went limp. 

She quickly disentangled herself from the corpse. Natasha worked her away across the floor, methodically sweeping with her legs until she found the knife. It took a little maneuvering but she got it pinned between her knees so she could cut her hands free. She sliced through the pillowcase and ripped the tape off her mouth. It took a little bit of careful cutting to get the tape and fabric off her throat. She lost a lock of hair to the process. 

She pulled the corpse’s shirt off and shrugged it on, then rifled through his wallet. She took the cash and, after a moment of consideration, his credit card, and tucked them into the waistband of her panties. She kept the knife.

Creeping over to the door, Natasha stopped to listen.

“I am not interrupting Dale’s happy fun time. Dude is creepy as fuck.”

“Yelena’s in California, we gotta be able to switch them back.”

“Or what? Like seriously, what’s the worst thing that happens?”

“The Avengers figure out that the real redhead couldn’t have killed Captain Planet while he was in LA and she was in New York and they don’t kill her and Yelena kills us for ruining everything?”

“Okay, but we don’t have to do it now. We got a couple days, man.”

“We can’t take a half-naked, duct taped woman on a plane, Jerry. We’re going to have to drive. Across the entire fucking country.”

“So what’s another hour?”

Natasha was busy looking around the small room and formulating a plan. She took an inventory: no windows, one door, small drain in the floor, furnace, water heater, folding chair, roll of duct tape, corpse. Her eyes landed on a box on the wall. Fuse box. Jackpot. She stripped off Dale’s belt. Natasha cranked up the water heater and layered strips of duct tape over the drain. She tested the strength of a pipe running across the ceiling. Everything was coming together. She put Dale’s corpse in front of the door and ran a strip of duct tape from the valve on the water heater to the fuse box. She set the folding chair in front of the fuse box and stood on it. 

She pulled the duct tape. The valve opened and hot water began spilling out on the floor. Phase one was complete. Natasha watched from the safety of the chair while the water began to flood the small room. Once it had built up to a respectable level, over an inch of steaming hot water, she opened the fuse box and flipped all the breakers. The reaction from outside the room was immediate. She looped the belt over the pipe in the ceiling. As soon as the door opened, she launched herself towards it, using the pipe as a zip line. 

She heard the first man trip over the corpse and his shout of pain as he landed in the hot water. She hung from the pipe, just a few feet from the door as a second man fell for the same trick. They were both shouting, trying to warn others. Natasha swung her body over and let go, landing on top of the body and slipping out into the darkness. The men were well and truly distracted by the disaster in the utility room. She simply walked out of the building.  
***


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha has a supersoldier to save

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suppose a trigger warning is due here for use of a suicide pill.

When Clint heard about the fire, the first thing he thought of was Natasha’s accusations that Maggie was more than she appeared. Even after Tony explained what Thor had done, the suspicion lingered. The first thing he did after arriving at Tony’s Ventura beach house was seek out Steve.

“Whoa.”

Steve looked up from his tablet and smiled. “If you’ve ever wondered what I was like before the serum, this is pretty much it.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. They never did any long-term trials,” Steve admitted. “I’ve been feeling a little off for months, losing weight, getting weaker and slower. Had an asthma attack from the smoke when the compound caught fire. That hasn’t happened in a real long time.”

“Are you okay?”

“I never thought I’d be back here, but I never forgot what it was like either.” 

“Whoa,” Clint repeated, more softly.

“Fury’s having a conniption. I think this is the most like his father I’ve ever seen Tony act, and don’t tell him I said that. Sam thinks I’m dying. Me? I don’t know why I ever assumed it’d last forever.”

“But you’re letting them run tests, right? Either SHIELD or Stark or both?”

“I gave them each one vial of blood. Mostly I’m wondering if I could retire. I could prove Ultron wrong and live without the war. I wanted to help. Not to be a big hero. Just…help. Somehow I got caught up in something so much bigger.”

“I wanted to eat,” Clint countered. “Like Nat, I was doing some freelance work before. Pays the bills. Then I met a girl.” He smiled fondly. “When Laura got pregnant, I realized that working for people who might pay you or might also shoot you in the head was a bad deal. I brokered a better one with Fury, and I joined SHIELD.”

“And the rest is history,” Steve guessed.

“She, uh, well, she lost that baby. But I kept the job. When Lila came along, I made damn sure I never forgot why I’d taken it to begin with.”

“I don’t like bullies,” Steve said, as much to himself as to Clint. 

“Sorry to change course on you, but I need to ask a real awkward question,” Clint began. “About your girl, Maggie.”

“What about her?” 

“Does she have a scar running crossways low on her belly?” He gestured as he spoke. 

Steve’s sudden frown told him everything he needed to know. “She had surgery,” Steve answered. “Freshman year of college, ovarian torsion.”

Steve had that concerned, suspicious look on his face and Clint waited for him to ask the obvious question. “How did you know?”

“Nat told me to ask. She also told me that Maggie’s resume contains falsified information and her accent is fake.”

“So, what? Natasha snooped into Maggie’s medical records?”

That possibility hadn’t occurred to Clint. “I don’t think so…”

“Really?” Steve gave him a skeptical look and Clint could feel the shift in energy as Steve prepared a righteous lecture. “That seems like the obvious answer. I know I screwed things up with Nat. I’m sorry for that. But who I date is none of your business and I like Maggie. I’m not going to sit by and listen to you two make a bunch of accusations about her character.”

“Natasha has the same scar,” Clint blurted out. 

That gave Steve pause. “What from?”

“I never asked.”

***

Natasha paid cash for a fake id. She hoped the men wouldn’t be in any hurry to report their failure; she wanted to get the drop on Yelena. She bought herself a plane ticket and a change of clothes with the dead man’s credit card. Tucked into the fitting room, she painstakingly peeled the tape off her breasts. Her arms and legs were covered with small abrasions from ripping off the bonds there. She opted for long sleeves and pants to hide them. She had a plane to catch and a super soldier to save.

***

Steve spent a few hours stewing. He called Maggie but she didn’t answer. A minute later, he got a text message that said “Work, love. What’s up?” He left his phone behind and sought out Natasha. 

“Why’d you send Clint to ask me about Maggie’s scar?”

Natasha stared at him for a moment, a hint of a frown creasing her brow.

“The truth, if you think you could manage that,” he added. 

“I thought the conversation might go better if I wasn’t around,” she hedged. She was somewhat impressed that Natasha had suspected her. She wondered what had given her away. 

“He said you had one like it.”

Of course. That scar. All the Red Room graduates had one. “I do,” she admitted. 

“How’d you get it?”

“Surgery.” 

Steve didn’t seem overwhelmed by her vague flippancy. His eyes narrowed. “Could I see it?”

“That’s a little personal, don’t you think?”

“I just want to know if it’s the same as Maggie’s. Or, you know, you could tell me what kind of surgery.”

She repressed a smirk. Natasha unfastened her pants and opened the fly wide. She shimmied them down her hips a smidge. Just above the low rise waist band of her underwear was a thin, pale ribbon of scar tissue. 

It looked exactly like Maggie’s. Steve leaned in for a closer look and pushed the hem of her shirt up slightly to get its shadow off the scar. He froze and looked up at her face.

“Who are you?” he whispered, pulling back slowly. 

“What are you talking about?”

“Where’s your scar?”

“You were literally just looking-“

“Not that scar.”

***

“Where’s Steve?”

Clint looked at Natasha and frowned. “Out back. Did you change clothes since earlier?”

She ignored him and ran for the rear of the house. She burst through the back door. Yelena and Steve were standing amid the tea roses. Yelena had Natasha’s face and a large pair of pruning shears. 

“Get away from him, you bitch.”

It was hard to tell which of them was more surprised. Yelena recovered more quickly. She swung the shears at Steve. He brought his hands up instinctively and the blades sank into the flesh of his forearm. Natasha raced across the yard while Steve struggled with Yelena. She tackled her doppelganger before she could recover the clippers. 

Clint emerged from the house with Sam on his heels. Sam rushed to Steve’s side, trying to slow the blood loss. Clint had grabbed his bow and he took aim at the two women fighting. 

“You know which one to shoot?” Sam asked. 

“It’s like Budapest all over again,” he replied.

“You and I remember Budapest very –“ Natasha didn’t finish before Clint put an arrow into Yelena’s shoulder. Natasha managed to get a handful of wig and she pulled hard. 

Yelena shook out her blonde waves and snapped off the shaft of the arrow. “I will finish this,” she swore. 

“It’s already over,” Natasha replied. Clint readied another shot.

“Then kill me.”

“It doesn’t have to end like that.” Natasha spared a glance at Clint. “Turn yourself over to us. I could help you.”

Yelena snaked her tongue over her teeth and Natasha’s eyes widened. 

“Don’t!”

Yelena bit down on something that had been hidden in her mouth. Natasha lunged forward, shoving her fingers between the assassin’s teeth, scraping out as much of the capsule she could. She could hear the sirens of an ambulance approaching as the blonde went limp in her arms.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conversations.... in which Clint is a good friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried really hard to edit this and get some actual action to happen, but it's a necessary evil. The entire chapter's really just two conversations. You're lucky it's not three. Or four.

“A dozen stitches and a tetanus shot,” Steve said with a shrug. “Not bad. How’s…um, well, whoever she really is?”

“Comatose,” Clint answered. “They don’t really expect her to wake up.”

“Yelena Belova,” Natasha said quietly. She looked out the window as she spoke. 

“You ready to talk about what’s wrong?” Tony asked.

“I’m not interested in being a lab rat.”

“It’s me,” Tony objected.

“That’s one of my concerns, actually. Could we not do this right now?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah. You know where my lab is. Rat.” He left in a huff. 

“Let’s give them a minute,” Clint put his hand on Wanda’s shoulder as he led the others out. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve offered once he and Natasha were alone. 

“Do you want to see her?” 

“No.” He didn’t hesitate. 

“You know, it’s okay - probably even normal and healthy - for you to grieve for Maggie.”

“She never even existed,” Steve objected.

“Your feelings for her did.”

“I feel like an idiot.”

“She was trained by the same people who trained me, Steve. She was good. There’s no shame in falling for her act.”

“I fell pretty damn hard. Who was she?”

“An assassin. Trained and molded by the ruthless machinations of the Red Room.”

“Is the scar part of that? Or was that her that asked Clint to ask me….”

Natasha smirked at his confusion. “She switched places with me during the fire at the compound. I was the one who told Clint to ask you about the scar.”

“He said you have one too.”

Natasha opened the front of her jeans and took a step closer to the bed. She adjusted her clothing to reveal the scar, low on her abdomen. Steve looked at it. He reached out and flipped the hem of her shirt up. He smiled at the scar from where Bucky had shot her. 

“Just checking. What’s that one from?” He withdrew his hand and let her get her pants back in place. 

“Hysterectomy. The Red Room did it to all their graduates.”

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say.

“Me too.”

“I’m really sorry for the way I acted while we were dating, and after,” Steve said.

Natasha shook her head and looked like she was about to dismiss his apology, so he pressed on.

“I made a terrible mistake. I took you for granted. I thought that I should give Maggie more of a chance because she was new in my life and you’d been there so long. It was unbearably stupid of me.”

“It really was,” she agreed. “Especially since she never actually cared about, she was just trying to get close enough to do…whatever she did to make you weak enough kill.” 

“Yeah,” Steve chuckled lightly. “Tony’s up in arms about it.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Not counting years I spent frozen, I’ve been like this longer than I was like that.” He shrugged. The hospital gown slipped off his narrow shoulders and he tugged it back up. 

“There has to be more to it than that. That’s a neutral position, you actually seem like you’re in favor of staying this way.”

“I just keep thinking if I could find Bucky, if he could see me like this…”

“He’d remember.”

“This is the Steve Rogers he knew.”

“What happens the next time Tony builds a murder bot? Or an army from outer space attacks? What happens when the world needs Captain America?” Natasha asked.

“Bucky needs Steve Rogers.”

“The needs of the many.”

“What about ‘regimes fall every day’?” he shot back. “When you prioritize Clint over everything else, that’s fine, but when I do it for Bucky it’s a problem?”

“I never jeopardized what we were doing!” 

“Would you?” Despite his less imposing stature, he stared her down fiercely. “If saving him from Loki had meant taking yourself out of the fight, even knowing that you were the one who closed the portal, would you have still done it?”

“How do you plan to find Bucky?” Natasha asked grudgingly.

***

Clint ambushed her in the hallway outside Steve’s room. “How are you?”

“Besides the fact that I haven’t slept for three days?”

“Yeah,” Clint said. “Besides that.”

“Or that I busted my ass to save Steve and barely made it?”

“I call that a win,” he countered.

“Or that I actually really wanted to save Yelena and I’m pretty sure she killed herself to spite me?”

“She’s not dead, technically.”

“This is worse. Kept alive by machines…we might as well have sent her back. The Red Room would let her die. Give her peace.” Natasha’s chin trembled. Clint slipped his arm around her comfortingly. 

“Besides all that, how are you?”

She drew a shuddering breath and let her head rest against his chest. “I still like him.”

“Steve?” he guessed.

“He broke my heart and all the pieces still like him. I wish I was as heartless as everybody thinks I am.”

“It would be easier,” Clint agreed. “For you anyway. I’m kind of fond of your heart.”

She didn’t crack a smile. 

“You want me to talk him?” he offered.

“No.”

“Because I’m going to talk to him anyway and this is me giving you an opportunity to have input on the direction of that conversation.”

“Clint, don’t.” Natasha pulled out of his embrace with a serious expression on her face.

“No. You put yourself out there. You were honest, and I know that’s hard for you. She was dishonest and it paid off for her. It was bad enough when he ditched you for that floozy, but she wasn’t even a real floozy.”

“You’re actually making this worse,” Natasha informed him.

“No, because you were hurt but you were okay when you thought she was a fine, upstanding citizen. When you thought that maybe she would be his Laura. It didn’t really wound you until you found out she was just like you. Not better. Not safer. Not more deserving. Just. Like. You. But she had him and you had nothing.”

“I had a thug with a roll of duct tape. It’s quite serious. We’re talking marriage, kids, the whole nine.”

“You killed a thug with a roll of duct tape, didn’t you?”

“I’ll never tell,” she replied with a smirk that Clint knew meant yes. 

“It’s probably karma.”

“You gonna give him a second chance?”

“No.”

Clint’s eyebrows shot up. “Nat, you like him. Why not just give him another shot?”

“He doesn’t want me. He wants Maggie.”

“Maggie never existed. The Red Room compiled a list of his interests and turned it into a cute blonde. Of course he wants her. She was literally hand-crafted to be as perfect for him as humanly possible. And you know what?”

“What?” Natasha asked with an eyeroll.

“She still wasn’t as perfect for him as you.”

“That’s sweet. So I’m going to take a shower, sleep for twelve hours, and take another shower. Show up around seven tomorrow, you’ll be right on time for eating ice cream in our pajamas and listening to ‘I’m not that girl’ from Wicked on repeat.” She smiled wanly and headed for the door.

“Elphaba gets the guy in the end,” Clint called after her.

Natasha stopped and pivoted to face. “Elphaba gets a bucket of water in the end.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nanobots! Flowers! Art!

“What’s wrong with Steve?”

Tony looked up. He turned down his music. “So many things.”

“The serum, why is back to being puny?” Natasha clarified.

Tony sulked for a moment. “Fine. The formula used on Steve depended on two separate factors: the serum itself, which everyone knows about and is pretty much responsible for making him faster, stronger, and more patriotic, and was lost to the ages. And an infusion of Vita Rays. That’s the part Banner fucked up. There are a lot of people who are close to figuring out the serum or a serum that might do the same thing. Nobody knows what a fucking Vita Ray is. The Vita Rays activated the serum and bonded it to his cells.”

“That’s really the missing piece from all the research,” Natasha mused.

“Your Russian friend flooded his system with nanobots. It couldn’t have been injections; he would’ve noticed her shoving a needle in his arm. I’m guessing she somehow snuck them into his food. From what I can tell, the nanobots were designed to combat radiation damage. They were tested on residents of Fukushima. They’re being tested with cancer patients who are receiving radiation therapy to protect the healthy cells while hard targeting the unhealthy ones. They are, in short, really fucking cool. They also reversed the effects of the Vita Rays. The serum went inert and then it was flushed out of the body like any other waste product. If we’d caught it early, we might have been able to deactivate or remove the nanobots and he would’ve recovered on his own. But at this point, the serum is gone. I took a bone marrow sample. There’s nothing left. We need to recreate the serum and the vita ray chamber and repeat the whole process.”

“And we have neither of those things,” Natasha observed.

“I’ve been combing through Dad’s notes,” Tony admitted. “He hid information. There wasn’t anything that he was more obsessed with than the super soldier program. If the information exists…it’s somewhere in his notes. Of course, it’s all moot if Rogers won’t agree to it.”

“Will he keep getting worse?”

“I don’t think so,” Tony answered but it was obvious by his tone that he hadn’t explored the possibility. 

“Well try to convince him that he will. That the serum is saving his life.”

“Diabolical. I like it.”

***

When Steve came home from the hospital, he stopped by Natasha’s door with a bouquet of lilies. 

“Steve.” Her voice had that gentle warning tone. She didn't want him trying to charm his way back into her heart, especially since she was pretty sure it would work. 

“No, I just didn’t really properly thank you for saving my life.” He smiled. 

“Okay.” She accepted the flowers.

“I was thinking that I should probably just keep apologizing until you forgive me,” he added.

“You’re forgiven. I’m not mad at you, I never was.” She set the lilies on top of her dresser. “I certainly never wanted things to end like this.”

“It could be worse, for me at least,” Steve acknowledged. “I mean, she didn’t actually kill me.”

“Set the bar a little higher, Steve,” Natasha advised.

Two days later, he was back in the hospital with a massive infection. When he was released again, he came to Natasha with a bouquet of tulips.

“Steve?”

“I thought the lilies were probably dead by now.”

“You don’t have to keep me in fresh flowers.”

“I know that.”

“Tony set up a computer with enough processing power to run SHIELD’s facial recognition scanning program,” Natasha said, changing the subject. 

“Neat. Why?”

Natasha gave him a look. “Because your plan for finding Bucky was ‘keep looking’ Steve.”

“Oh!” Steve brightened. “Wow. That’s a great idea. Thank you for that. See? You’re earning more flowers.”

Natasha laughed. “They are pretty. Thank you.”

***

Steve enrolled in ballroom dance lessons without telling anyone. He wasn’t sure when he’d get a chance to dance with her, but he had hope. He came to her door early one morning.

“Hey,” Natasha greeted him flatly.

“Clint mentioned that you haven’t been sleeping well. I thought a little morning pick-me-up might be in order,” Steve said earnestly. He held out a cup of coffee. Natasha accepted it, eyeing the paper bag tucked under his arm. “I got cinnamon rolls too.”

“Come on, let’s go down the to kitchen.”

Steve set out plates and served each of them a cinnamon roll while Natasha sipped the coffee. “This is good.”

“Fork?” Steve offered.

“Oh, it’s funny how civilized you think I am.” Natasha leaned across the table and pulled one of the plates to her. She dug into the cinnamon roll with her fingers. 

“Napkin, then?”

“Mm.” She nodded, her fingers covered in sticky frosting. They chatted and ate and drank coffee. It was early enough that they had the kitchen to themselves. They were finishing up their breakfast when Steve remembered something else. 

“Oh, um, once you get cleaned up, I picked up this too.” Steve set a postcard on the table next to her plate. The front was a photograph of a painting of a ballerina tying her shoe by Andrew Atroshenko. “I spotted it on the newsstand when I was getting breakfast and it made me think of you.”

Natasha’s smile made his insides go to mush and he made a mental note that art was a better investment than flowers. She got up immediately, taking her plate to the sink and washing her hands. She sat back down and picked it up. “It’s beautiful.” She flipped it over and her jaw dropped. “Is that me?”

“It was just a quick sketch; I did it from memory so it’s not very…” 

“Steve, thank you.”

***

After a great deal of internal debate, Clint had decided to bring Laura to the ceremony on Asgard. He introduced her to those who didn’t already know her as a girlfriend. 

“I’ve never been undercover before,” Laura teased as she adjusted a piece of the ceremonial Asgardian garb Clint was wearing.

“I’ve never worn scale mail before.”

“It looks good on you. What’d you tell everyone about us? How long have we been dating? Are we sleeping together? Did you see the bed? Please tell me we’re sleeping together.”

Clint grinned. “We are most definitely sleeping together.” 

“I wonder how long Asgardian wedding ceremonies last,” Laura mused.

“I wonder how much of a hassle it’s going to be to get out of all this,” Clint retorted, gesturing to their ornate clothing. 

“I’ll help you if you help me.”

"We clearly need more nights away from the kids." 

The ceremony began with listing the ancestry of both the Bride and Groom. That was followed by a forty minute long discourse on the significance of their union to the both Midgard and Asgard. The Avengers, Darcy, Sif, and the Warriors Three stood at the front of the hall in a horseshoe formation around Thor and Jane. Laura had been to bilingual Catholic weddings that didn’t drag on as long. The seats were padded and her butt still fell asleep. Finally Thor and Jane kissed, and the processional to the banquet hall began.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roses are red, violets are blue, it took me forever to get the pacing right on this so that it would end with a kiss

The wedding feast was not comparable to anything on earth. There were varieties of meat, fruit, vegetables, rolls and pastries the likes of which they'd never seen before. There was wine and mead and ale. Everything was savory and filling, though they wisely avoided the mead. As the guests finished their meals, the hall filled with music. 

Thor and Jane were first to take to the dance floor, but others quickly followed. The Avengers made a united decision to sit out the first song and watch the Asgardian style of dance. “It doesn’t seem so different,” Pepper observed.

“Shall we, then?” Tony asked. 

“Come on,” Clint pulled Laura to her feet. 

Steve looked at Natasha eagerly. “Would you like to dance?”

She hesitated. “Next.” Natasha left Steve with a slightly baffled expression on his face as she made her way to the front of the great hall. She curtsied deeply in front of Odin’s throne. 

“May I approach?”

“You are one of Thor’s Midgardian friends,” he noted. “Yes.”

“Natasha,” she supplied. She glanced at the empty throne beside his. “While this is a joyous occasion, it must be difficult for you as well. Thor told us of what happened to his mother. No doubt you miss her greatly today.”

“I do,” the king acknowledged.

“Would you like to dance, your majesty?”

He studied her for a moment before a soft smile broke on his face. “I would, thank you.” Odin stood and descended from this throne, offering Natasha his hand. If she was self-conscious about the number of eyes suddenly upon her, she didn’t let it show. Natasha held her head high. The crowd on the dance floor parted for the King.

“Is she allowed to do that?” Darcy asked, leaning forward.

“If I did it, there would be a scandal,” Sif replied, but her tone was tinged with awe.

“If I did it, there would be an execution,” Fandral added. 

“But she’s foreign, young and pretty,” Volstagg said. “And that buys a lot of leeway.”

“He hasn’t been the same since Frigga’s death,” Hogunn observed. “It is a kindness. A distraction to focus him on the joy of the wedding and not on his grief.”

Natasha followed Odin’s lead through the dance with grace and poise. “Thor has told me so much about you, I feel as though I know you,” he told her as the song ended and he walked back to his throne. “Thank you for the dance.”

“Thank you, your majesty.”

She returned to the table as Fandral was escorting Darcy to the dance floor. “Still up for that dance?” she looked at Steve hopefully.

“I thought you’d never ask.” He was nervous as they stepped into the crowd. Steve took a deep breath, focusing on what he’d been learning about finding the rhythm. Natasha smiled at him as they danced.  
Clint and Laura slipped away to their room. Darcy danced with everyone available, including Sif, twice. Steve and Natasha danced only with each other. Tony and Pepper disappeared to their room as well. Steve and Natasha wandered through the palace, Thor had told everyone they were free to explore. They found themselves on a balcony overlooking a river. The stars seemed brighter on Asgard. 

Without the effects of the serum, Steve was no taller than Natasha. Breakfast had become an almost-daily ritual, with them talking about everything except their relationship. The flowers had remained a weekly occurrence, different varieties to see what she seemed to like best. All that was familiar. This was different. 

“I thought you said you weren’t much of a dancer,” Natasha said pointedly. “You did well.”

“I’ve been taking lessons the past couple months. I guess they paid off.”

“Why?” she asked and Steve’s gaze dropped to the ornate tile floor. He looked like he wanted to sink right through it. 

“In case I had an opportunity to dance with you,” he admitted. “You don’t come right out and say it, but you like to dance. I wanted to be a good partner.”

“They definitely paid off.”

Steve brightened instantly. 

“I guess it’s all paying off,” Natasha continued. “The flowers, the breakfasts, the fact that you’re finally, actually paying attention to what matters to me. It’s getting harder to convince myself not to give you a second chance.”

“That’s not what I meant by paying off,” Steve exclaimed. “I’m not trying to…” He stopped as Natasha’s soft, flirtatious expression shattered into surprise. 

“You don’t want…us,” she stammered. “Well, that’s embarrassing.” 

“No!” Steve practically shouted. “No, no, God, no. That’s not what I meant either. I want you like poetry wants to rhyme.” He grimaced. “No, that was a stupid analogy. I want you like a drowning man wants a life preserver. What I was trying to say is that I’m not being nice to you because I want you to like me or to give me a second chance. I just wanted to see you smile. I was trying to make you happy. Not get something from you.”

Natasha took a moment to absorb his declarations. “Like poetry wants to rhyme?”

“I’m sorry about that. Poetry is romantic. Drowning is decidedly not.”

“Do you want to give this another go?” she offered.

“I really do.”

She took Steve’s hand and stood close to him, watching the moonlight glitter off the surface of the water below. There was a lull of comfortable silence. 

“Shooting star,” Natasha said suddenly, pointing. “Make a wish.”

Steve closed his eyes hard for a brief moment. He opened them and turned towards her. “Would it be okay if I kissed you?” 

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Steve smiled sweetly and leaned in, reaching up to caress her cheek, his fingertips light as a breeze. He hesitated just shy of her lips. “That was a yes, right?”

Natasha closed the gap between them. Her warm mouth pressed against his. His hand fumbled past her ear and found purchase in her hair. The dull, distant sounds of the party were overpowered by the rush of blood pounding behind his eardrums. Her tongue slipped past his lips and he welcomed it. The tips of her fingernails dug into his scalp as she pulled him closer. 

By the time they broke apart, Steve was breathless, literally panting, and Natasha looked at him with concern. “You aren’t going to drop dead on me, are you, old man?”

Steve took a deep breath, shook his head, and leaned in for more.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dating. Steve has terrible luck, but things work out for the best. Mostly fluff.

“It seemed like you really enjoyed the reception,” Clint remarked in a not-at-all-casual tone.

“The food was really something,” Natasha replied coolly. 

“I was referring more to the entertainment.”

“I thought you were too busy groping your wife to notice.” She cracked a smile. 

“Did you break him?” 

“We didn’t sleep together.” She rolled her eyes at Clint’s presumptuousness. 

“What? Why not?”

“Because we went on two dates and that was months ago. I’m not rushing into bed with him.”

“I didn’t really mean why not.” Clint offered up an apologetic smile. “I was just teasing a little. But you two did…talk, at least? You seemed like you were really enjoying the dancing.”

“We talked,” Natasha confirmed. “We even kissed.” She mouthed the word ‘twice’ while holding up two fingers. “And we’re having what we’ve decided is our second first date next week.”

***

“You look beautiful,” Steve said reverently as he handed Natasha a dozen red roses. 

“Thank you. You look pretty sharp yourself, Captain Rogers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a tie.”

Steve smiled bashfully, ducking his chin and blushing as he touched the knot of navy silk at the base of his throat. 

“Well, it’s a nice restaurant. Pepper helped with the reservation. As in, I couldn’t get one without her calling and dropping Tony’s name.”

“Wow.”

“And after dinner, I’ve arranged for a carriage ride through central park. It’s supposed to be romantic. I guess.”

“You’re really going all out,” Natasha observed.

“I’m going all in,” Steve replied decisively. Natasha smiled. “Was that cheesy? It was cheesy,” he backpedaled a bit, self-conscious. 

“It’s a good kind of cheesy. Like pizza. Which, for the record, would’ve been a perfectly acceptable date. You don’t have to jump through a bunch of hoops to impress me.”

“Noted.” He offered her his arm. “I wanted to do something special.” That included opening the door of the cab for her. 

Over dinner, the conversation turned to travel. “I visited all fifty states, but I didn’t get to do any actual sight-seeing,” Steve admitted. “It’d be nice to go back. Be a tourist for a change. And see how different things are now.”

“Would you fly or do it as a road trip?”

“Road trip.” Steve answered without any hesitation. 

“Yeah, I guess you don’t do so well in planes.”

“I do just fine in planes. As long as they don’t crash into the arctic.” He grinned and she grinned back. “That’s a lot of driving to do alone, though.”

“It is. And you’re going to have to…” Natasha trailed off, a pained expression flickered across her face. 

“Have to?” Steve prompted.

“Sorry, you’ll have to get on a plane to see Hawaii. Or a boat. Maybe you should skip Hawaii.” 

Steve frowned at her. “Why would I skip Hawaii?” 

“I can’t imagine how you’d feel at the Pearl Harbor memorial.” 

The thought was a punch in the gut. Steve felt like all the air had left the room. He understood why Natasha had suddenly become so serious. “I’d still like to see it,” he finally said. “Even if it hurts.”

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Natasha advised.

“Are you offering to come with me?” He found himself holding his breath as he waited for her answer.

“Anywhere.”

When they came out of the restaurant after dinner, the temperature had dropped considerably. Steve coughed drily when the cold air hit his lungs.

“Guess winter’s here,” he noted when he recovered. He slipped off his suit jacket. “You should put this on, it’s a bit of a walk to the carriage stand.” 

“Keep your jacket, Captain Chivalry.” Natasha smirked. “I think I tolerate the cold better than you do.” 

“I spent a lot of long winters without any heat,” Steve insisted.

“So did I.” 

A befuddled look appeared on Steve’s face. “You did?”

“During my time with the Red Room. The girl’s dormitories didn’t have heat.”

“It’s my understanding it gets pretty damned cold in Russia, how’d you get by?”

She pressed her lips into a thin line and looked down. “The, um, officer’s quarters did.” Her gaze flickered back to Steve to gauge his reaction. He’d stopped walking. He might as well have had the word ‘processing’ flashing across his forehead as he stood, stock still, holding out his jacket. Finally, he cleared his throat.

“Are you sure you don’t want this?” He shook the jacket gently. 

“The cold never bothered me anyway.” 

That broke the tension. “We should do a movie night,” Steve suggested as he put his jacket back on. “I still haven’t seen the third Toy Story.”

“We could have dinner at my apartment,” Natasha offered. “I’ll cook. If we do Disney/Pixar we could probably watch two, they’re not as long as, say, Lord of the Rings.” 

They arrived a little early and had to wait for the carriage. “Okay, the wind’s picking up,” Natasha observed. “Maybe the cold bothers me a little?”

Steve unbuttoned. “You want it now?”

Natasha shook her head and suddenly slipped in close to him, wrapping her arms around his waist under the jacket. “Just wrap it around us both.”

“Well, this is a nice way to stay warm.” He helped her into the carriage and quickly cuddled her back inside his jacket for the ride. 

***

Natasha cooked; Steve set the table, wiped down the countertops and rinsed dishes, loading them into the dishwasher. He packed the leftovers into the fridge while she dished up dessert. “That’s the sort of thing that will get you invited back,” Natasha warned jokingly.

“So this is what it takes to impress you?” he relied. 

“It’s a start.” 

They went dancing. They watched most of the Disney/Pixar catalog. They went bowling and Steve discovered just how much the serum had changed things for him. He lost terribly. He wasn’t just weaker, he was less coordinated. They took a painting class. Steve produced a beautifully artistic rendition of the still life. Natasha wouldn’t even let him see hers. Steve locked himself out in a hail storm, had to break into his own apartment though the window, and came down with pneumonia. He spent two days in the hospital and another week and a half recuperating at home.

“You know there’s a vaccine for pneumonia these days,” Natasha said pointedly. “You should probably get a flu shot too.”

“I actually really hate needles.”

“Well, I really hate hospitals. I’d rather not visit you in one. We’ll go together. I’ll buy you an ice cream after if you’re brave.”

“You’re patronizing me.” Steve leveled his best glare at her. 

“Maybe a little, but I’m also willing to do whatever it takes to get you start taking better care of yourself.”

Steve sighed in defeat. “Set up an appointment.”

They visited every tourist trap within a day’s drive. They attempted ice skating. Steve fell six times and on the seventh, landed wrong and sprained his wrist. 

“This wouldn’t have happened to Captain America,” he griped. 

“It just did.”

You know what I meant.”

“Captain America isn’t the serum or the suit or the shield. Your heart and your mind make you who you are.”

“I just…I feel like I should be able to do these things and I can’t.”

“Do those things really matter?”

Steve thought about it and didn’t answer.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fight breaks out. Warnings for violence and language.

The first game of the Major League Baseball season was the Dodgers (formerly of Brooklyn) versus the Orioles and they went to a sports bar to watch. They had a small wager going. Steve was for the Dodgers, Natasha against, and the loser would have to ride the bar’s mechanical bull. Natasha was already teasing Steve about spraining his other wrist. Natasha headed to the bar for a seventh-inning stretch. 

“Let me buy you a drink, sweetie.”

She glanced at the man, wearing an Orioles cap and a t-shirt that had faded to illegibility. 

“No thanks.”

“It’s just a drink.” He inched closer to her. He smelled of cheap beer and stale cigarette smoke. Natasha ignored him. She paid for her vodka tonic and Steve’s Guinness and walked away. 

“Fucking bitch!” The man spat at her back as she headed towards Steve. She could tell from the look on his face that he’d heard it even over the noise of the crowd. He stood. 

“Was he talking to you?” Steve took his glass and set it on the table without taking his eyes off Natasha. 

“Don’t make a big deal,” she counseled. “Trust me, the best reaction is no reaction.”

“No.” He shook his head.

“Steve.”

“He was out of line. That was disrespectful and rood and it’s just not acceptable. How can you accept him talking to you like that?” 

“It’s sweet that you’re so worked up about this, but I’ve been called worse.” She sat and gestured to the chair across from her. 

“I’m going to go have a word with him.”

“You’re going to introduce your face to his fist.”

“I have to stand up for what’s right.”

Natasha took a significant swig of her drink and made a face. Too much tonic, not enough vodka. She watched as Steve confronted the man and sure enough after a few heated words, they headed for the exit. She was contemplating just letting him get his ass kicked, but she somehow doubted it would teach him anything. When she saw several other men move to follow, she slipped out a side door and hurried to help Steve.  
It was five against one and Steve was already on his knees when Natasha rounded the corner. 

“Stay down, pussy.” One of the men kicked him as Steve struggled to his feet. 

“Let him be,” Natasha called out. “I’m calling the cops.”

One of them grabbed her arm, wresting her cell phone from her grip. “No. You aren’t,” he sneered. Over his shoulder, she saw at least three more men approaching. She stopped on his foot and twisted free.  
A few of them lingered near Steve, but the majority of the men had turned their focus on Natasha.

“You again.” The Orioles’ fan stalked towards her. “I got something for you, stuck-up cunt.” He produced from his pocket a folding knife with a four-inch blade. 

The men swarmed in. They groped and grabbed and pawed at her. She abandoned any effort at playing the civilian and went into assassin mode. She broke or dislocated any limb that came near her. They got in a few good hits by virtue of superior numbers. Steve hit the ground and didn’t get up. 

One of them had grabbed her from behind, snaking his hand reaching around her waist and down into the front of her jeans. The Orioles’ fan thrust the knife towards her and she grabbed his hand, flinging her body to the side and driving the blade into the man behind her. She switched hands seamlessly and broke Orioles’ nose with her elbow. His grip loosened and she stripped the weapon free. She sliced deep into the arm that was still wrapped around her midsection and disentangled herself from the assailant. 

Now that she was armed, some of them began to back off. Natasha made short work of those foolish enough to continue the fight. Natasha pivoted and lunged, stopping with the blade of the knife close enough to leave a thin line of someone’s blood on Sam’s jacket. 

“Whoa!” He held up his hands. “You called me.”

Her expression shifted from murderous to mildly annoyed. “Took you long enough. Steve’s hurt.” She pocketed the knife and they both hurried to the captain’s side. 

Steve groaned weakly. Sam and Natasha’s eyes met. “Ambulance,” they said in unison.

“I’ll call,” Sam added.

Natasha surveyed the alleyway. “I think one of those bastards took my phone.”

“What about you?” Sam watched Natasha watch the paramedics load Steve onto a gurney. 

“What about me?”

“You should have them check you over.”

“I’m not hurt,” Natasha insisted.

“Your lip is bleeding.”

Natasha touched her lip and looked at the blood on her fingertip. “That doesn’t require medical attention.”

“Then I guess you can ride to the hospital with me.” 

Sam dropped her at the door and parked, meeting her in the waiting room. Natasha gave the police a statement and the knife and the number of SHIELD’s legal department. They didn’t have any further questions. Sam wandered off and came back with sandwiches and coffee. 

“Thanks.”

“You sure you’re okay?” He frowned at her. “You’re being…not sarcastic. And really, scarily quiet.”

“Some asshole in the bar made an asshole comment to me and Steve flipped his shit and started a fight. It’s my fault he’s hurt.”

“No, it’s not. Steve likes to fight. He’ll find an excuse.” 

The silence was a little more comfortable after that.

“Are you two with Mr. Rogers?” A young man in scrubs approached them. 

They both burst out laughing. Natasha tasted blood as the split in her lip reopened and it helped her regain her composure. “Yes. Yes, we’re with Steve.”

“Well, we’re not going to admit him. We’re still working up his discharge papers, but you can go back and see him if you want.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Alright" isn't all right, Sam is the best,

Steve grinned slightly dopily when he saw them. “Hey. No concussion. They checked. I think three times. Did they release you already?”

“I’m fine,” Natasha answered quickly. “No need to waste their time.”

“Your well-being isn’t a waste of time.” Steve’s smile vanished. He was trying to look stern but it wasn’t working.

“My being is very well, thank you.”

“They…they didn’t hurt you?”

“No. But, well, I don’t know how to tell you this….”

Steve straightened in the bed, eyes widening with concern. 

“The Dodgers lost.”

His shoulders dropped and Steve gave an exasperated sigh. “Nat, I’m serious.”

“It was a bar brawl. We’ve both been in worse fights before,” she pointed out.

“This was different,” Steve insisted. “This wasn’t the Avengers saving the world. This wasn’t Captain America and Black Widow and Falcon take on Hydra. This was me, Steve Rogers from Brooklyn, failing to protect someone I care about.” 

“You know I can protect myself, right?” Natasha tried not to sound accusatory or defensive. 

“Always? Even with the serum, there were fights I couldn’t win.”

“And this is just one lost fight. Shake it off.”

“They,” Steve cleared his throat. “They threatened to rape you. I blacked out. I don’t know for how long, I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if you’re really okay or if you’re trying to protect me from knowing the consequences of my failure. But I know that you lie when the truth gets uncomfortable.”

“Sam? We’re going to need a moment.” Natasha’s expression was closed off. 

Sam drained his Styrofoam cup in one glugging gulp. “Would you look at that, I need another coffee.” He hurried into the hall, closing the door behind him.

“I lie when the truth doesn’t suit me.”

“Did they?”

“No.”

“Is that the answer that suits you?” Steve asked. 

“They hit me. They threatened me. They touched my arms and my legs and my ass and my breasts. One of them managed to get his hand down my pants and he pressed his finger against me through the fabric of my underwear. That’s as far as it went.” She crossed her arms. “And I feel a little sick just thinking about it. I feel a little…violated. And I feel a little scared.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Not for this.”

“You said you were fine. You said your being was well. You crack jokes or you get defensive. I don’t know how to get you to be honest with me-“

“You ask when we’re alone.” Natasha’s pointed tone deflated Steve’s bubble of anger. “I’m barely just okay with being vulnerable in front of you. I can accept you, and only you, knowing that I’m capable of fear.”

“I’m sorry.” He looked down at the sheets. “I know what it’s like to play at being stronger than you are.”

“Why do you think I’m okay with you knowing the truth?”

He looked up. Natasha was smiling very faintly. 

“Did the Dodgers really lose?” 

“Oh yeah.” Natasha nodded.

Steve sighed heavily. “What a night.”

Finally a nurse came in with Steve’s discharge papers and they were allowed to leave. They found Sam sitting in the waiting room. 

“You didn’t have to stay,” Steve said apologetically. “We could’ve gotten cab home.”

“Yeah. I know.” 

The dawn was breaking at the horizon when Sam pulled up outside Natasha’s apartment building. 

“Are you coming up?”

There was a brief silence in the car.

“Yes, yes he is.” Sam patted Steve on the shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”

“Thanks.”

They took the stairs slowly. Natasha examined her door before unlocking it. Steve just stood in the entryway as she methodically checked very room, closet, and window. “You can make yourself comfortable,” Natasha told him when she returned. “The nurse said you aren’t supposed to be alone and…I really didn’t want to be alone. Do you think you can be alone long enough for me to shower?”

“I feel okay. I won’t go to sleep.” He looked around. “How about if I make breakfast while you get cleaned up?” 

“That sounds good.”

Steve took a quick inventory of her pantry and fridge. “Pancakes?”

“Don’t burn the place down.”

Steve puttered around the kitchen, heating a griddle pan and mixing batter to the sound of running water. The water shut off and he saw Natasha dart across the hall wrapped in a towel. He flipped the first batch of pancakes and stopped to peek out the window. Rush hour was in full swing. The skies were clear, the sun quickly burning off a bit of haziness. 

Natasha emerged with wet hair, barefoot and wearing yoga pants and a University of Iowa t-shirt. She immediately set to work pouring two glasses of orange juice. 

“I love you,” Steve stated. She looked at him. He cleared his throat and looked down, picking a bit of burnt batter off the edge of the spatula. “I’m sorry. I meant ‘can you hand me a plate?’ These are done.”

Natasha got two plates out of the cabinet. She stood in front of him. “I love you.” Love sounded like early morning traffic. It smelled like fresh pancakes. It felt like cool, smooth tile beneath the soles of her feet.   
Steve plopped pancakes onto each plate and kissed her, gently. “We should eat while they’re hot.”

After breakfast, Steve started clearing the table. “You cooked,” Natasha said firmly. “So I’ll clean.” She set the neatly stacked dishes in the sink. “And since they’re my dishes and it’s my sink, I say it can wait.”

“Wait?”

“We’ve been up all night. Come to bed. Lay down with me and just sleep.”

Steve was still asleep late in the afternoon. Natasha was watching, counting the seconds between his breaths, little quotation mark worry lines etched between her brows. A knock at the door startled her and Steve began to stir. By the time he was fully awake, Natasha was halfway to the door, gun in hand. 

She sighed and tucked it into her waistband when she saw Sam through the peephole. “We have to stop meeting like this,” she cracked as she opened the door.

“Well your phone got stolen and Steve’s is either dead, turned off, or in the arctic circle. Goes straight to voicemail.”

Steve ran his fingers through his hair and gave a shrug. “Two out of three? I’m pretty sure it’s on my nightstand. What’s up?”

“It’s Yelena. She’s gone.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three words: Super Powered Mice.

The color drained out of Natasha’s face. “How? When?”

Sam suddenly realized his mistake. “No, not gone like ‘she’s gone’ gone. Gone like missing. She’s missing. She…well, I mean, I can’t promise she’s alive but…”

“I think how and when are still very valid questions,” Steve said. “I mean, she didn’t get up and walk out.”

“I got a phone call; I thought you two should know.” Sam shook his head. 

“I guess we can start at the hospital,” Steve suggested. “Try to confirm the last time she was in the room and who had access. It almost has to be an inside job: a nurse, a doctor, an orderly.”

“Or someone posing as one.” Natasha pulled a bag out of a space in the ceiling of her hall closet. “You head to the hospital. Let me know if you find anything.”

“Where are you going?” Steve reached for her.

The shock of thinking Yelena had died woke Natasha fully. Her mind was racing with possibilities. “I’m going to follow a hunch. Do you think it’s the slightest bit odd, or maybe too coincidental, that we were in a bar brawl on the same night that she disappeared?” 

“You think they’re connected?” 

The men had been, perhaps, too well-organized, too good in combat and, well, frankly, too sober for a random collection of bar patrons. “I think it’s worth looking into,” she answered distractedly. 

“Be careful.” Sam frowned at her.

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Nobody ever accomplished anything by being careful. But I’m just making a few phone calls.”

“On what phone?”

Natasha sauntered back to the bedroom without a word. A moment later Sam’s phone vibrated, and he looked down at it. He didn’t recognize the number. “Did you just text me a chicken emoji?” he yelled.

“They don’t have a Falcon!” Natasha called back down the hall. 

Steve chuckled. “I’ll come with you to the hospital.”

***

Natasha had lost track of time when someone knocked on her door. She answered it with a deep frown and a drawn gun, as per usual. “Clint?” He looked beyond exhausted. “I thought you were in Bankok?”

“Hence the Thai food.” He gestured with the insulated bag in his right hand. His left arm was in a sling. 

Natasha smiled and shook her head, taking the bag and opening it on her kitchen counter. “Clint, this is from the place down the street.”

“It was a long flight, and I got hungry. Sam said you’re working a lead on Yelena?”

“I don’t have names for any of these assholes, so I’m flipping through mugshots on a system that boots me out every seventeen minutes. It’s fantastic.”

“Nat, your laptop doesn’t have enough processing power to hack the police.”

“I take it you haven’t let Stark upgrade your laptop.” Natasha was busy eating nam tok mu directly out of a container. 

“I don’t let that maniac touch any of my stuff.” 

“You let him sleep at your house. What happened to your arm?”

“Buckle fracture of the humerus.” Clint rolled his eyes. “Not as funny as you might think.”

“When I’m done eating you wanna help me break into the morgue?”

Clint grinned and leaned way back in his chair. “Yeah.”

***

Steve cocked his head to the side and squinted at the screen. “That’s one of the men who attacked us. Can we…download this or something?” He stepped back and let Sam take over the computer for a minute. 

“Okay, I got that. Keep looking.” Sam resumed keeping an eye out while Steve looked through the computer files. “It could still be a coincidence.”

***

“Any luck?” Clint offered Natasha a hand as she climbed out the window. 

“He had a Russian prison tattoo.”

“I’m going to classify that as a no. It’s just a little too much for coincidence and not nearly enough to get anywhere.”

Natasha was already calling Sam. “Find anything?”

“Normal people say hello.”

“Hello. How’s the weather? Did you find anything at the hospital?”

“Yeah, two of the guys worked here. And it’s windy out.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Try to pull files on anyone who’s been absent since last night.”

“That’s going to take a while.”

“Oh, am I keeping you from something pressing? When you’re done, get everything to Hill and have her start running facial recognition tracking with a focus on travel surveillance.”

“The more I know about SHIELD, the more terrifying you all become.” 

“Thanks. Call me if you get anything useful.”

Sam was trying to give Steve a your-girlfriend-is-crazy look, but Steve was completely focused on the computer screen. “Sure thing. Bye.” He quickly gave Steve a rundown of Natasha’s demands. 

“Can you handle that? I need to talk to Tony.”

***

“What are you doing here?”

“Just using the equipment; I haven’t touched any of Jane’s stuff.”

“Doesn’t Stark have a lab you can use?” Darcy folded her arms across her chest.

“Yes, but this one has the benefit of not having Stark in it.”

“I know the equipment better than you do. Let me help.”

Natasha eyed her suspiciously.

“I’m a little bored,” Darcy admitted.

With a sigh, Natasha offered up a very small plastic bag containing a dark colored object scarcely larger than a grain of rice. “This is a tracking device. I just need to read the signal and trace it back to the source.”

“You want to track who’s tracking the tracking device?”

“The glamorous life of a spy.”

***

“Jesus Christ, what happened to your face?”

Steve flinched. “Oh, that.”

“Yeah, that.” Tony wiped off his hands on a shop rag and came closer. “God that looks like it hurt.”

“Where are you at on- is that a toaster?”

Tony stepped between Steve and the workbench. “It’s nothing.”

“Until it attacks Thor and we all end up nearly dying in a fire.”

“The fire was the fault of your psychotic ex-girlfriend. And Thor’s problem solving abilities…well, I’m going to blame the schools on Asgard.”

“So you bear no responsibility.”

“I am an irresponsible bear.”

Steve sighed. Some things weren’t worth arguing. “You got the serum all figured out?” 

Tony’s eyes lit up. He nodded as a smile began to form.

“And the vita ray chamber? You figured that part out too?”

“What happened?” Tony was grinning. “You get your ass kicked and decide that being an ordinary mortal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?” 

Steve sighed.

“God, you have no idea how badly I’ve wanted to test this on myself.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Tony’s expression faltered. “The, um, process enhances certain parts of the brain; it reinforces the most used neural pathways to improve efficiency of thought, memory and decision making. It also means that if you’ve used most of your neural pathways to make an ass of yourself…it turns you into a bigger ass.”

Steve frowned. 

“Bruce had anger issues before his attempt. The serum enhanced them, the gamma radiation, well… I guess I don’t have to tell you what that did.” 

“Schmidt was crazy, it made him psychotic…” Steve reasoned.

“I don’t know who that is. But the reason you were chosen for the trial was your personality. I don’t want to turn myself into a monster.”

“I think you’re a better man than you think you are.” 

Tony didn’t quite know how to take that. “Anyway, I did a little animal testing. I have four very impressive mice in the freezer.”

“The freezer?” Steve sounded horrified. “Why would you freeze them?”

“Do you have any idea how destructive super powered mice are?”

“So you froze them?”

“They chewed through two cages. And I’m pretty sure they damaged the inside of the freezer but I’m afraid to open it and look. I’m not ready to euthanize them, not yet. I had to do something with them.”

“Not yet? But you will be. Later. Once they’re no longer needed. You’re going to kill them.”

“They’re mice. They were being sold for snake food.”

Steve’s hurt expression didn’t falter.

“Do you want four pet mice?”  
***


End file.
